Category: General

Kitchen Additions and other gifts

My Christmas wish list was brief, a hen shaped egg basket for the kitchen counter and an Ott light for beside my chair for knitting or writing at night. Mountaingdad, welcomes suggestions, but is also alert to my doings. While we were decorating for Christmas, I realized that I had never added any holiday music to my Iphone, our CD player took a power surge about two years ago and so the CDs could only be played in the car and he caught me rigging the laptop to a speaker set to play music, so he also bought me a compact CD player with radio and speakers that once I get longer wires will be able to be spaced on opposite sides of the living room. It was delightful to be able to play music yesterday while I was putting the decorations away.

Shortly after all the decorations were stored, our rural letter carrier drove down the driveway and honked his horn, a signal that he had something too large for our oversized mailbox. A trip outside to meet him, we were handed the Christmas box that our daughter had mailed before Christmas. She was in a crafty, hand made gift mode this year and the box contained a roll of unpaper towels, and 2 adorable owl pot holders.

As you see, I got my egg basket and I am working in my recliner with my Ott lamp over my shoulder.

December 30, 2014
The Demonstration

I grew up in the hippy age, an age of demonstrations, some peaceful, some not so much. Even though I witnessed some of these demonstrations or the aftermath of some not so peaceful, I never participated in one.

Tonight as a senior citizen, that changed. The companies that are trying to force the fracked gas pipeline through our region are holding federally mandated “Open Houses” to feed more of their rhetoric down the throats of the landowners whose property will be despoiled by the installation of this 42″ pipeline, if the pipeline company gets all of the permits it will need. One of the companies involved has criminal charges against it in Pennsylvania for dumping or improper disposal of toxic waste byproducts. Neither of these two companies that are hiding under an LLC have ever built a 42″ pipeline and not through karst topography in the mountains. Each of these Open Houses is being held in a county affected and in each case, the county has tried to organize an anti Open House against the pipeline. Tonight, the Open House was in the next county and they picked a site where there was no room for the opposing meeting, so the opposers advertised to their involved residents and to the adjacent counties opposition groups to come out during rush hour and demonstrate on the side of the highway in front of the venue, beginning an hour before their Open House was to start and continuing well into the dark. We had 8 and 10 foot banners, a 10 foot long mock up of a 42 inch pipeline with a banner on it’s side, hand drawn signs and some of the printed signs that most of us have posted on our property. We waved signs and held a peaceful demonstration right near the entrance to the venue until well after the meeting was underway. It was cold, brutally cold and windy out there, especially as the sun set. There were far fewer demonstrators than we had hoped, but it was poorly advertised and as I said, it was cold. The counties are unanimously opposed to this proposed pipeline. The pipeline builder will be taking land and right of ways by eminent domain for their personal gain. This pipeline will not benefit the landowners, will not provide jobs, will not benefit the businesses in our counties, but will put us at risk, will threaten our groundwater, will damage or destroy 3 caves near us that are home to bats, including albino bats, will threaten 2 historical covered bridges and threaten or destroy several historical homes. We wish more had come out, but we did have media coverage and were told that more opposing public had gone in to the Open House. We heard that there was to be a peaceful “Sit In” during the last half hour of the Open House, however, we had to leave before it all broke up for the night. Our hope is that this profit making company will give up due to the opposition, the sensitive nature of the area they are trying to traverse, or due to the falling crude oil prices. Perhaps more states will follow New York’s lead and prevent fracking in their state for health and safety reasons.

December 18, 2014
An Energy Rant

OK, I’m basically liberal in my leanings. I do think that the overabundant use and collection of fossil fuel is ruining the environment between mountain top removal for coal extraction and greenhouse gasses from the burning of it and natural gas as well as the fracking for that gas. The fracking process is poisoning ground water and the waste from it dumping chemical laden water in holding ponds and radium and radon sludge being dumped above ground. Once this coal or gas is extracted, it is transported to a coastal port via train and pipeline primarily to be exported overseas. All the while, the highways are clogged by petroleum guzzling semi trucks hauling goods around the country that could be more economically transported by rail.

If you have followed me for a while, you know that we are in the path of a proposed fracked gas pipeline, 42″ in diameter. Our region is limestone, karst topography, full of caves, sinkholes, 3 fault lines and every resident relies on groundwater from springs or wells for our water supply. Our immediate community is a Historic Preservation region with more than 300 historic and historical sites including two covered bridges, many that are also in the path of this pipeline. There are 3 significant caves on the path within 5 miles of our house, one containing endangered albino bats and all home of bat populations already threatened by the fungal white nose disease. In the meetings we have attended to learn more about this pipeline and to work to organize to oppose it, we have learned that a pipeline of this size, should it leak, causing an explosion, that the blast zone would be 2000 feet. That the industry accepted loss from these pipelines is 1% (probably higher if that is what they are reporting) and that methane would leech into our groundwater.

The company that is already using divide and conquer techniques and threatened lawsuits trying to force this through has a bad reputation for shoddy work and accidents and has many fines and a major lawsuit against it for damages in Kentucky.

To say we don’t want this in our backyard is an understatement, but we don’t want it anywhere, not just in our backyard. The years and dollars spent on this project would be much better spent on clean, alternative energy. Natural gas, especially fracked natural gas is not clean. It produces more greenhouse gas than burning coal. Don’t be deceived by the “Clean Coal” and “Clean Natural Gas” advertisements, it is not clean, do some research. Watch the video Gaslands.

We are fighting this, with peaceful opposition at meetings with the companies, through letter writing campaigns, with voting for politicians who are against these practices. We need help. Yesterday, the Keystone Pipeline was narrowly defeated, but will resurface as soon as the new congress is in office. Also yesterday, it was announced that fracking was going to be allowed in the George Washington National Forest. This is where parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Skyline Drive are located.

To frack or build a pipeline, acres of forest will be destroyed, herbicides will be sprayed to keep the undergrowth controlled, herbicides that will affect the health of the fauna and the human populations near the areas and anyone who receives their water from the groundwater or the watersheds that these areas serve.

What can you do? If you live in any of the counties affected by any fracking or pipelines, join the organized fight against them, attend the meetings, stand up and be heard. If you don’t live near them, but want to continue to enjoy our natural resources, write your politicians and be heard. It is going to take a national community to stop this desecration of our country by these practices and to stop our natural resources from being shipped overseas. For the funds being spent on these projects to go toward true clean energy that doesn’t destroy the environment.

If you are local, we need an auditorium full of people at Giles County High School, November 20, 2014 at 6:30 p.m. to peacefully show opposition by our numbers and our signs. Questions of the pipeline companies will be allowed by filling out a 3 X 5″ card with your question.

If you want to see more about fracking and pipelines, look on Wiki or check out http://www.preservethenrv.com.

Please help. This is our dream retirement home, built with our lifesavings and we don’t want to see it despoiled or destroyed, nor do we want any environment poisoned or destroyed.

November 19, 2014
Flip flop

Today is gray,
Cold is back on it’s way.
Granola is baking.
Chickens are grazing,
Residents are lazing.
A good day to knit, read, drink tea.

Sorry, not much of a poet:D

November 5, 2014
SAY NO TO THE PIPELINE

Last night Mountaingdad and I attended the county Board of Supervisors meeting in opposition to the proposed “natural” gas pipeline. We were heartened that the gallery was full to overflowing with residents of our county, the adjacent county, and the county that successfully blocked it. There were more than 100 people in attendance and 16 spoke, including Mountaingdad. Though this wasn’t a hearing on the topic, I feel the Board was given some good information, not just the sales propaganda from the Mountain Valley Pipeline people. We were also heartened to learn that we don’t have to try to start the resistance moving in our community, that there is already a group made up of folks from 4 counties and we just need to jump on the band wagon.

The statistics and data that we heard are frightening, regarding the dangers of even a smaller 30-32″ pipeline and they are talking about an experimental 42″ pipeline. The map showing the proposed route and the question and answer sheet that was provided from the presentation they made to the county representative several days ago, shows that they are not going to directly use the power line easement, but rather take land near it by eminent domain and depending on which side of the easement they choose, they could be on our land or very near our farm and perhaps will take our land for the road access as they come in to destroy a 125 foot wide swathe of forest and dig a 10′ deep trench through the rock and karst topography and along a fault line of our county. Needless to say we are alarmed. Construction blasting and digging or a pipeline accident with a pipeline of that size could wipe out from our home past the only major road through the county, virtually isolating some of the county residents. This in a large mostly rural county with only 4 small volunteer fire and rescue companies. The route crosses the New River and two major creeks feeding the New River numerous time, threatening over 250 historical sites including 2 of the 3 covered bridges. The estimated property impact is in the billions of dollars. This is for a pipeline to carry gas recovered through fracking (a groundwater destroyer) and they won’t guarantee that the gas won’t be shipped overseas instead of for domestic use. The estimated lifetime of this pipeline is only 20 years.

The Cascades

Bridge built in 1912 and designated as a Historical Landmark.

Built in 1916, designated as a Historical landmark.

Historical farmhouse

Historical farmhouse

The two bridges and the two houses are all within the probably easement as are many other historical sites.

There have been over 360 incidents resulting in at least $40,000 damage to property per incident (the figure that is put on declaring it an incident) in the US alone including one that killed 8 people and destroyed an entire neighborhood in California just within the past few years from fracking or the transmission of the gas recovered by this process.

This pipeline won’t even be giving jobs to our region as the installation of such a pipeline requires specially trained workers that are brought in with their own temporary housing during the construction.

Our county has been striving to present itself as a recreation, vacation and wilderness area with over 45 miles of the New River for kayaking, canoeing, tubing and fishing; the wonderous Cascade Waterfalls, Mountain Lake and Lodge, and more than 50 miles of the Appalachian Trail including one of the trail towns. The forest destruction will definitely impact the desirability of this area as a vacation spot or wilderness retreat.

If you are one of my local readers, please join the cause against this pipeline and share this information with friends and neighbors. We need all of the support that we can get. More info is available at Preserve the NRV on Facebook.

October 17, 2014
Issues and finishes

About a week ago, we learned that a proposed natural gas pipeline route had been relocated to cross our county. As best we can tell, just below our property following the easement that the power company has for heavy load transmission lines, does that make sense, to run a gas line under electrical lines? This gas will be coming from fracking in West Virginia and transported across our county and several adjacent counties to one south and east of us. This is clearly not something that we support and hope that at tonight’s Board of Supervisors’ meeting, there will be strong and vocal opposition. In addition to the 40+” buried pipeline, there will be several pumping stations, the locations of which have not been decided or at least not revealed. One of the counties that was on the original route were so adamantly opposed and raised valid enough opposition that the route was reconsidered. The two counties that it is slated to pass through after our county have mounted opposition groups.

On my trip home on Tuesday, I passed through a county that is on a different proposed pipeline route and every property has opposition signs along the roadway and about 1/3 of the properties were for sale before property values plummet if the pipeline goes through their county.

We fear for our property value, but also for our groundwater and physical safety if the line does indeed go beneath the electrical lines. Our county sits on limestone and is riddled with caves and sinkholes. It is subject to rare, but recorded earthquakes. If there were a breach in the pipeline due to a sinkhole or other disaster, it could ruin the groundwater on which this county relies as most residents get their water from springs or wells.

To add to this threat, we experienced another torrential rain two nights ago that made our state maintained gravel road look like it had been clawed out by a giant cat with gullies up to a foot deep traversing across it back and forth. Mountaingdad has spoken with a VDOT representative on the road about the issue that the road swale tips in one direction then the other with no rain bars or culverts to direct the flow. It tips toward our driveway about 20 feet up the hill and our culvert fills with gravel and mud from the road several times a year. We have hand dug it out, had VDOT dig it out and now we are getting gravel building up on the downhill side of the culvert in our yard. VDOT says they can’t do anything but regrade it with the same swale and won’t seem to consider adding culverts to direct the flow. This is another battle we will have to again fight.

I did finish the never ending Socks On A Plane today. They have been on the needles for at least a year.

They have a lovely little cable down the outside edge of each foot that the yarn totally swallowed. And to add insult to injury, they are too small for my foot, so I am going to have to find a new owner for them whose foot is smaller than an 8.

Last night at Knit Night, I ripped out the entire sleeve on the sweater I have been knitting as the armhole was so ginormous that I could put 4 of my upper arms in each one. I have started them again following a decrease patter that has brought the sleeve size down to one that is still large, but might actually fit inside my winter coats. My sweater knitting has not been very good for the last year. One I made for me was too small and found a new owner in a knitter friend. This one is too large, but I don’t want to rip it all out, so if I can make the sleeves work, I will just wear it.

October 16, 2014
Return

Sunday eve found Son#1, Grandson#1, and me motoring back to Northern Virginia. The original plan had been to work on the scaffolding and sharpen knives on Saturday, deal with the meat chickens on Sunday, and have some hiking or other recreation on Monday, Columbus Day, and then I was going to take them home. Friday as Son#1 was preparing to leave work for home and then the bus trip here, he realized that he wasn’t off on Monday, but Grandson#1 didn’t have school. Plans changed, we accomplished the Saturday and Sunday plan and took off on Sunday eve for their house. I spent two nights there to provide care for Grandson#1. Leaving for home early this morning and encountering much semi traffic and intermittent rain, I decided to take a non interstate route home, at least most of the way.

The route was a beautiful drive, though it took about 90 minutes longer and I drove through a few very severe storms. The route took me through a good portion of the poultry raising parts of Shenandoah. This is why I humanely raise and kill my own chickens and buy our turkey from a local free range farmer.

This is one of hundreds of poultry “houses” along the route. The sign that I tried to capture said, “Absolute no trespassing, no visitors.”

This is what the inside of a “free range” building looks like. Photo from the internet, source unknown.

A poultry processing factory, it covered about 2 blocks. The entire town smelled like death and stench.
One of half a dozen trucks I passed going to the factory, each with 120 of these cages so low the turkeys can’t stand in them and each cage holding about a dozen turkeys.
The birds beaks were clipped so they couldn’t harm each other. This is grocery store poultry.

On a more pleasant note, though the rain was intense at times, part of the route paralleled the Maury River.

The leaves were beautiful, the river sometimes well below the road like the picture above and at other times it was only feet from the edge of the road. It was a certainly a prettier trip than the interstate, but the trip expanded to 6 hours instead of the usual 4 1/2. Was it worth avoiding the semis? I guess it was, but I’m glad to be home again.

October 14, 2014
Traveling and Semis

Yesterday as I was traveling from home to Northern Virginia, I was intimidated more than once by semi trucks. When I was young and interstate highways were just being developed, semi trucks were about 35 feet long. That was intimidating to a new driver then. I am not a new driver, I’ve had a license for more than 5 decades and I have an excellent driving record. My trip takes me on I81, a major north south route through the western part of Virginia. It intersects and superimposes over I64 a major east west route for about 30 miles. Both of these roads are heavily traveled by trucks. It is rare to see a 35 foot truck now, most have 53 foot trailers or two 35 foot tandem trailers. On this trip I saw a few of the longer tandems.

I’m sure that for the most part they are safe drivers, but that route experiences a semi accident about 5 times a week, especially in 2 counties it traverses. It is frightening to get boxed in by these behemouths with them in front and too close behind as well as one or more in the left lane. On 2 occasions yesterday, I had one try to pass me when I was in the right lane doing the posted 70 mph speed limit, then discover he could not get up the hill at the speed he was going and lane change back to my lane with insufficient clearance causing me to have to brake quickly with another semi on my back bumper.

It is a joy to travel in states where semis are not permitted in the left lane, Virginia is not one of those states. It would be nice if more funds were invested in the rail infrastructure and send more of our cargo by rail. Once the train leaves from a city closer than 2 hours from home, I will chose that mode of travel.

August 15, 2014
Book Challenge

One of my avid passions is reading. My favorites are forensic science fiction, historical fiction and fiction by local authors or authors that set their books in areas or regions that are familiar to me, though I often read books recommended by friends, family, or public reviews..

Last year I joined a 100 book challenge a bit into the year and succeeded in reading 90+ books. This year, again I joined the challenge and have read almost 50 books so far. The challenge is a group including many of my friends, however, it is on Facebook and I have decided to deactivate my account. I will miss the book suggestions and reviews from this group.

I have always loved books and have several that I read repeatedly such as Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the classic To Kill A Mockingbird.

All of our family are readers and I have been in awe of our 9 year old grandson, who while staying with us this summer has read in excess of 4000 pages of novels. Though he still picks up some books that would be considered 3rd to 4th grade level, he has read the entire Seven Wonders series, the entire Eragon series (3 of the 4 are over 750 pages each), and reread the first book of the Hunger Games series. He not only can read them, but will sit and discuss them with you. In that sense he reminds me of his Dad at that age. Such a great passion, love of books.

August 9, 2014
The Dentist

Not too many folks are fond of dental visits, unless you are the Bill Murray character in Little Shop of Horrors. My dentist isn’t like Orin Scrivello, actually he is a pleasant young man, but I still don’t like the visits.

My first day in Northern Virginia last week, I broke my left maxillary cuspid. The back of the tooth and the old metal filling stayed in place, the entire front of the tooth broke off. I wasn’t even eating something hard. I called my dentist and since I wasn’t getting home until very late Thursday night and since it was a holiday weekend, I couldn’t get an appointment until this morning. I called my son’s dentist in Vienna, but they suggested that if the tooth wasn’t bothering me, that it would be best for me to wait to see my own dentist as I would have to follow up with him anyway and that would incur double cost. I waited. Bright and early this morning I had my visit, left with a numb top lip, a hefty bill, a tooth that has had the metal filling removed, a tooth colored filling applied and built up to approximate a tooth and an appointment in August to have a crown, my 6th.

I was not blessed with hard tooth genes and unfortunately have passed the soft enamel on to all three of my children. Hubby on the other hand has granite teeth, but none of the our children got his tooth gene.

Since I didn’t eat breakfast due to morning farm chores and the early hour of the appointment, I could eat the couch right now, but I’m afraid I will have to wait a bit more time for the numbing to wear off so I don’t bite myself. I’m not a cannibal afterall.

On a more positive note, our first full day with grandson was full and rewarding. We got him a library card, signed him up for the summer reading club (he is a voracious reader at a level well above his 9 years, going in 4th grade level), we did his summer writing and math practice assignments, he practiced his guitar and kung fu without a fuss. His granddad let him watch part of a movie, they played baseball in the front yard, and they shot off some of the fireworks that were purchased prior to the 4th.

Today’s practices have been completed and we are going to go do some errands. We need a basketball for him to play with, a book in the Seven Wonders series is not in the local library chain so we will buy it for him and the pups need some supplies.

At some point soon, the fencing for the meat chicken run needs to be completed, the chicken tractor repaired from the dog damage and the electric fence extended around all of that. Today it is going up to 90ºf, too hot for outdoor labor. I will tackle some of it after it cools off this evening and work on it some in the morning before it gets too hot. Brown Dog hasn’t been back for more free chicken in a few days, or hasn’t been seen. Either they have him secured or our reinforcements, gates, and taller fence have discouraged him.

July 8, 2014