Tag: opposition

Sunday Thankfulness

Weekends bring the Farmers’ Market and breakfast out. We live near a major university town and university towns have bagel shops, except this town didn’t. You could get a bagel at one of two local coffee shops, but they were made in a city nearly an hour away. Those bagels could also be bought at the natural foods stores, but they are only delivered once a week. You can get Panera’s idea of a bagel. A new vendor at the Farmers’ Market is now selling bagels, I haven’t tried them yet and yesterday was much to cold to stand outside and eat a cold bagel. On Monday, however, the town got it’s first made on the premises, get them fresh bagel shop. Welcome Hello Bagel. We ventured in instead of going to the usual diner which has been so busy the past few weekends that we have had to stand at the door and await a table. Yesterday’s bagel was hot and delicious, buttered with a cup of coffee. They do need more cream cheese varieties, but lots of bagel flavors.
Fueled with breakfast I braved the market while Mounntaingdad sat in the car and finished his newspaper. My favorite meat vendor was back and was saddened to hear her absence was due to the death of her father. She had just left his side to return home when he passed.
A few meat items and a large cabbage were purchased from her, potatoes and almost 4 pounds of Daikon radishes from another vendor. I had kimchi or more correctly, Maangchi in mind.
Growing up, I had never heard of fermented food, wasn’t a big fan of canned sauerkraut, and yoghurt wasn’t in every dairy case. Upon buying our farm we found, with son#1’s help, a Korean Restaurant in a tiny town west of us and I experienced my first kimchi and though I don’t like all kinds, I do love Maangchi, the radish kind, and a turnip one that is similar. Most all of the fall harvest of radishes were made into Maangchi and it is nearly gone. Daikon’s make a better version and since they were available, I knew I could have more.

Such an easy process.

Not many ingredients.

Like kraut, the radish mix must be packed down to remove air. It can be eaten right away or let to sit on a dark shelf for a few days to ferment before putting in the refrigerator for enjoyment later.

I do think that next year the garden will contain Daikon radishes instead of the smaller cousins.

I am thankful for discoveries, for an awesome local market, for good food and as we are leaving shortly for another organization meeting against the pipeline, for “neighbors” who also want t o stop the desecration of our beautiful environment by this abhorrent potential project.

November 16, 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