Portland is a very well run and welcoming city. A thing I especially liked was the ubiquitous bubblers. I consider bubblers a sign of civic virtue. Another unique feature is the free public transportation. Yes – free, at least within the city. That keeps down the traffic and makes the city more open.
You notice but do not immediately comprehend that all the buildings in the downtown area have retail space on the street level and even the streets near tall buildings are tree lined. This makes the city livelier and more pleasant. Nothing is so depressing for a city street than to have it made into a canyon of blank walls. I suppose the challenge is to keep stores in those many storefronts but it doesn’t have to be all retail. There were things like Bally’s and some offices.
Mariza and I had supper at Jake’s Grill. It was founded in the early part of the 20th Century. A lot of the buildings are from around then. They are well maintained. We had lunch at Old Town Pizza. Mariza wanted to go because she read that it was haunted. According to the story the place is haunted by the ghost of a prostitute murdered by her employers after she tried to get out of the business. I think they just made that up.
Below is Mariza on the Portland street. She saw a lot more of the city than I did, since she did not attend the tree farm conference. I hope she will contribute an entry.
My cousin Ray Jr and his wife Carol live simply amid the eskers and moraines of Wisconsin in a place they call simply paradise. They are farming around twenty acres and using about twenty acres of woodland to provide forest products and fuel for their stoves. Ray told me that the detritus of the forest provides all the fuel he needs to keep his home warm all winter long. He has yet to cut a live tree for fuel.
Below are raspberries
They are organic farmers growing thing like garlic, peppers, tomatoes, raspberries, corn and pumpkins for sale at local markets. The garden crops such as garlic and raspberries are the most profitable, but also (perhaps because) most labor intensive. Tomatoes are very much in demand early in the season, but as the bounty comes in it becomes almost difficult to give them away. Anybody who has grown tomatoes in a home garden is aware of this phenomenon.
Below – Ray & his bushhog
Ray follows a kind of three field system, like those used in the Middle Ages. Crops are rotated and one field is always resting, fallow or with cover crops that will be plowed under to restore the soil. Ray says that the chief activity of an organic farmer is keeping the weeds down all summer long.
Below is a game animal exhibit at Cabella’s
In winter he works in the woods. There are two reasons for this. The most obvious is that other work on the farm is diminished during the non-growing season. But another reason is lack of mosquitoes and biting flies that make the woods miserable when they are around. (A silly, but true story about my running comes from the same motivation. I liked to walk in the woods, but the mosquitoes made life unpleasant for me walking so I started to run. The mosquitoes find you by zeroing in on the CO2 you exhale. Running leaves it well behind you and the little nasties are chasing smoke.)
I enjoyed driving to his house up HWY 41. I used to go this way to get to Stevens Point and I have a history with the Kettle Moraine area. I had a camp nearby when I was ten years old. We learned all about the local glacier landforms, such as kettles, moraines, eskers and drumlins. I also used to ride my bike here a lot. It is hard on the legs. The moraines make it a roller coaster ride.
The moraines are the places where glaciers stopped. They come in series, like ripples, as the ice advanced or retreated. They call the most recent ice age the Wisconsin and you can see the most interesting landforms from that period right here north and west of Milwaukee. Most of Wisconsin was under glaciers until around 10,000 – 15,000 years ago, when global warming (it happened then too) melted them, but not all. Chrissy’s parents’ farm near Lacrosse is in what they call the driftless or the coolie region. That region was not glaciated in the last ice age, so it is rougher, but it was not spared the ice age experience. Coolies are long narrow valleys formed by the flow of glacial melt water. Fall is a beautiful time in all parts of Wisconsin.
On the way home I stopped at Cabela’s at the junction of 41 and 43. Cabela’s is a more authentic store than LL Bean or Eddie Bauer, which have repositioned themselves as yuppie heavens these days. Cabela’s still celebrates the actual hunting, shooting, eating and stuffing of game animals. They sell everything from the cloths you need to be outside, to the rifles and bows to the meat processing equipment. Beyond that, the prices are very reasonable. I have shopped the catalogue but this is the first time I have been in one of the stores. It is almost like a vacation destination.
Above is Leon’s Custard. Milwaukee makes the best custard. It is better than ice cream and is made with cream and eggs. Leon’s was used in the movie “American Graffiti” and some outside views of Arnold’s in “Happy Days”. It is on 27th St (old Hwy 41) in Milwaukee.
On the side is a sugar maple tree. I just cannot get enough of that beautiful color.
I went with my sister to the Miller brewery and then around the old neighborhood. Below are the boiler vats. They are eighteen feet deep.
Miller Genuine Draft is good beer. Miller Highlife & Miller Lite are not. Miller also has a partnership with Leinenkugel, which is very good and it distributes Pilsner Urquell and Fosters, both of which are among my favorite beers. It was fun to see where they were made.
This is King Gambrinus, the patron saint of beer. This statue is in the “cave”, caverns dug into the hill where they used to keep beer cold before refrigeration. They used to gather ice from the local lakes during the winter and pack it around in the caverns. This cooled the temperature during the summers. Evidently the ice would last until the next winter. People lived closer to their environment in those days. You have to be more innovative if you have to do more than flick a switch to get air conditioning.
The plant in Milwaukee makes a half million cases of beer a day and all this beer moves out EACH day. This plant serves the upper Midwest and around 40% of the beer goes to Chicago. Five other plants around the country serve other regions.
BTW – According to the Bier Reinheitsgebot (beer purity law) issued by Wilhelm IV of Bavaria in 1516 all beer sold can be made of only malted barley, hops, water, and yeast. This rule still applies on Germany. Beer can be made from any grain. Miller mixes in some corn with the other ingredients and Budweiser uses rice. That means by German rules these are not really beers.
Only 1600 people work at the plant and half of them are corporate staff. That means that around 800 workers make all that beer. The plant is mostly automated. I was thinking again re the loss of jobs. Those jobs have not gone to China; they have just gone away. below is the Miller warehouse, clean, tidy and almost w/o workers. A half million cases will move through it today. You can easily see the jobs that automation takes.
On the other hand, other jobs are created but hard to see. My cousin Tony works for a company that runs webpages called www.officefurniture2go.com and www.homefurniture2go.com. The firm was founded in 2006, has about a dozen employees and distributes furniture around the country – w/o a significant bricks and mortar operation. We still think in the old industrial model where lots of people come together in one place. The new model has people distributed thinly and in small groups. It is hard to get used to it.
Anyway, we had another beautiful fall day. Milwaukee has nice parks as you can see from the pictures. Above and below is Humboldt Park. Pictures cannot capture such a glorious day. Even if the visuals could be perfect, you would not have the smell, sound and feel of the day.
I also drove down to Franksville. It is not a major tourist spot. It used to be where they made Franks Kraut. I don’t know if they still do, but I did see lots of cabbage fields. The brand is actually owned by the Ohio based Fremont Company, makers of all sorts of Kraut and catsup. Franksville is interesting for me because it was for a long time the edge of my biking world, as far south as I could reasonably ride and return in one day. It is still familiar. below is a cabbage patch.
Below a pumpkin patch near Franksville in Racine County.
Below is Lake Michigan looking south from Warnimont Park.
Indian summer is always a bittersweet time. The warm sun shining through colorful leaves is delightful, especially mixed with the smell of the new fallen leaves and the sound of their rustling underfoot. But this is also an ending. The last flowers of summer are on hanging lonely on their stalks. The falling leaves will soon leave branches bare. Pleasant October will yield to rainy and bleak November and we will have to wait several months for exuberant life to return to the forests and field.
Indian Summer is often a metaphor for life with its last vigorous but perhaps futile & melancholy gesture. It essentially one of the characters in John Wayne’s last movie, “The Shootist”. The poem “the Last Rose of Summer” sums it up. (I put the full text at the bottom of this post.)
Below is Austin Street where I grew up looking north. Those beautiful yellow trees are ash trees planted after the death of our elms. They were planted in the middle of the 1970s. The one on the right I repaired after a wind storm broke its branches. It was smaller then.
Metaphor aside, October is my favorite month and Milwaukee’s October did not disappoint. I visited some of my old haunts. Many things have changed; most things have remained the same or similar.
Below is a statue of Patrick Cudahy in Sheraton Park. Cudahy founded the city that bears his name when the opened a meat packing operation south of Milwaukee.
Below is Tadesuz Kosciuszko the Polish American hero in the park that bears his name. The Polish epic Pan Tadeusz is based on him. Interestingly, it starts “Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! Ty jesteś jak zdrowie.” Lithuania my country, you are like good health. Of course nationality is always complicated. The most famous Polish epic, written in Polish about a Pole can talk about Lithuania because they were part of the same commonwealth, which was lost, swallowed by its more agressive neighbors in 1795. It was gone for 123 years. That means that most Poles who came to the U.S. were not technically coming from Poland; they came from Russia, Austria or Germany, the countries that had annexed Poland and controlled its parts. Pan Tadeusz goes on with some poingancy, ” I never knew till now how precious, till I lost thee. Now I see thy beauty whole, because I yearn for thee.” Poles didn’t get their country back until 1918. The Lithuanians lost theirs again in 1940 and didn’t get it back until the fall of the Soviet Union. When I see the statue, I am reminded of the struggle. This was a Polish neighborhood and people knew the story back then. Today most people probably just see a man on a horse and think it is George Washington.
Speaking of a Polish neighborhood, this is Saint Josaphat’s Basilica, built by Polish immigrants. Milwaukee has lots of churches near each other. Each immigrant group built its own. We used to see it in the distance from our house. It was lit up at nights and my sister and I thought it looked kind of like some kind of giant monster. It was scary. You can see how this might be the case. Look at the “eyes”.
Below are geese flying into the pond in Kosciuszko Park. The geese chase away the ducks. In this goose-duck war, the ducks are completely outclassed. Geese used to be rare, but now they are all over the place. They are bigger and more aggressive than the ducks and they crap all over the place. Eventually, I suppose they will come to replace the ducks in the local ecology. They also used to migrate, but now many stick around all year living off the fat of the land (and the local gardens)
Don’t forget the poem
Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone; No flower of her kindred, No rosebud is nigh, To reflect back her blushes, To give sigh for sigh.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one! To pine on the stem; Since the lovely are sleeping, Go, sleep thou with them. Thus kindly I scatter, Thy leaves o’er the bed, Where thy mates of the garden Lie scentless and dead.So soon may I follow, When friendships decay, From Love’s shining circle The gems drop away.
The kids like Busch Gardens because of the roller-coasters. I like them too, but good amusement parks are places where you see experimental urban planning techniques and methods of cueing control. First the amusments.
Along side is Espen arm wresting the machine. He won, but it still cost 50 cents.
We went on the new ride called the Griffon. It has a fantastic vertical drop. Roller-coasters keep getting better. I recall the first time I went to Busch Gardens about twenty years ago. The best they could do back then was the Loch Ness Monster. My favorite is Apollo’s Chariot because you feel like you are going to fly out when you hit the high points.
The park is designed around a European theme. They have Italy, Germany, England, Ireland and France. Busch Gardens in Florida has an Africa theme.
Below is the Ireland part of Busch Gardens.
Now for the urban planning. Amusement parks create the illusions of space and distance. They do this by using travel time and changes of venue. Most of us cannot measure straight line distance very well. Instead, we use the proxies of time and effort. We also notice changes in scenery, especially when we pass through some kind of threshold such as a bridge, arch or gate. When you walk between and among the various parts of a well designed park, you never get to go the straight line. You often have to take some kind of transportation, usually a train, that makes it seem like you are embarking on a journey. You also cross a lot of thresholds. Bridges, arches and gates are placed strategically to make you think you have entered a different place. It works.
Below – there are nice gardens at Busch Gardens. One reason I like that park is that it is pretty.
Amusement parks are some of the places where various methods are best applied, but they are the basis of all good urban and park planning. I read a very good book re called A Pattern Language where the authors tried to figure out the patterns that make landscapes and cities pleasant. The book is full of suggestions that apply across cultures. I found a website re. You have to be member to get all the benefits, but it has some nice picture.
Below are Espen and Alex, practicing their usual looks, in Busch Gardens England.
At the risk of sounding like a philistine, IMO most great cities have that amusement park atmosphere and were essentially built with that same idea in mind. That is why people like to go there. Go to Venice, the Vatican, Paris or Vienna and tell me you cannot see that. It is just that in those days the amusements were for the princes and fat cats. At first I just thought amusement parks copied these places, but the closer I looked the more I understood that these were indeed amusement parks only on a grander scale and had developed more snob-appeal from just being around a long time. Just as in a modern Disney World or Busch Gardens, patronage allowed architects, engineers and artists to experiment with new forms. If the popes or the Medici could have built a roller coaster, they would have had one. Imagine them whooping it up on the drop. A roller coaster is a wonder of engineering and physics and requires an understanding of human perceptions and psychology. It is no small thing, physically or intellectually. I don’t doubt that Leonardo da Vinci designed one or two of them, but like the other things he drew, they didn’t go into production.
Below is the wisteria. Grows fast. Notice the arch as you pass from one section to the next.
For example, a path with uneven width (i.e. with wider spots and curves) is more appealing than a straight road. People all over the world like structures with galleries or porches. A well designed house offers a transition area from outside space to inside space. We are attracted to houses with a sheltering roof. A room with a corner with windows on both walls is nicer than one with windows only on one. Most of the things are obvious WHEN they are pointed out. Unfortunately, many of our modern cities violate almost all the precepts of a comfortable place to live. In recent years, we have designed our cities for the convenience of the automobile and make humans second class inhabitants in our cities. It doesn’t have to be that way and we can learn from what they do at quality amusement parks and public gardens.
Below is Busch Garden’s Italian street.
Some communities are being designed with the human principle in mind. Unfortunately, they tend to be only upscale places where ordinary people cannot afford to live. They also tend to run up against zoning rules. Recently, we also have the added permutation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Most of the nicest places in my favorite cities such as Krakow, Vienna or Istanbul would never pass the tests of accessibility. In theory, you could build a neighborhood as charming as some of those we find in great old cities, but modern rules would not permit it. However, you might be able to get an erzatz version as in Busch Gardens. That is not so bad.
Below are Alex and Espen entering the German section. Notice again the distinct entry.
Re housing, I read an article in this month’s Wilson Quarterly about housing. The author was Witold Rybczynski, who wrote a very good book called City Life that I read a couple years ago. Witold Rybczynski says that housing is so expensive because of all the restrictions governments place on land use and building requirements. Places where the red tape is the strongest, such as the New England and the West Coast, have much higher home prices. It is not simply a matter of greater demand, but also of artificially restricted supply. Builders are complicit in this, although you can see why they would be almost forced to do it. If a parcel of buildable land costs a lot, it just makes sense to build a big, expensive house there to make it worth the effort. Many people have more house than they need, but they have been convinced that they need even more. I recommend both the article and the book. Unfortunately, neither is available online, so you have to look at them in the old fashioned paper way (Wilson Quarterly is worth the subscription, BTW), but I did find a good interview with author.
Below is Roman Rapids at Busch Gardens. You get wet, but it was hot so good. Only Alex and I went. Mariza took the picture. Espen paid a quarter to try to squirt us from the side, but missed.
PS – this is a little off topic, but as long as we are talking re things that make life work, I also found a good article re freshwater. This is the link.
Below – the kids don’t like to have their pictures taken.
IMO – the recuperation part of R&R is getting a chance to think about things besides work, so this is what I have been doing.
Above – Mariza and Sponge Bob.
Below – Espen got a gum package that gave a shock when you tried to take one. He couldn’t understand why he got no takers. We are all suspicious of him bearing gifts.
Chrissy and I were talking re our kids and friends and quitting. It is always easy to advise people to just keep on going, don’t quit. But is that good advice?
Below is the family at four-corners way back in 2003. There is one in each state (Az, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico).
It is both generous and smart to leave something on the table when negotiating. It makes sense to quit while you are ahead. It goes against some of the popular wisdom, but maybe quitters can be winners.
The effort involved to achieve returns in most enterprises follows a predictable “S” curve. It usually takes a lot of effort to get started. Then at some point it gets easier and you get into a sweet spot where you get a lot back for the effort you put in. As you get closer to 100% solutions, it gets a lot harder again. When the going gets really tough, the smart person quits and moves on to something easier. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? But it is true and well known among those who study these things.
The reason is the cost of opportunities. You only have so much time. The time you spend doing one thing is time you cannot spend doing another. Is it better to achieve 99 points in one place (99) or 90 points in ten places (900)? It is often harder to get the last 1% than it is get the earlier 90%. So just say no to perfection and yes to diverse opportunity.
There are two inflection points on the curve. The first is where you are moving from the difficulties of start up into the sweet spot of easy returns. This is the place where loser-quitters usually throw in the towel. The second inflection point is where returns drop off. This is where winner-quitters wisely withdraw and move to greener pastures.
So what is our advice? The best is usually not that much better than the very good. It usually just is not worth the trouble. AND those always pursuing the best almost always end up with the second rate. Do lots of things. Moderation in most things is the best advice. Quit when the going gets tough if you have other options; hang around if you don’t, but don’t complain.
Below – back again in the USA for a couple weeks. This is the airport bus.
I am back in the U.S. on my last R&R. I can easily see that my country that is prosperous, peaceful, clean and full of opportunity – and very green in Virginia. Yet all I hear on the news is how tough everything is. Maybe all those whiners should check out some other places. You really have to wonder about the points of reference.
My point of reference is the 1970s, when I started to pay attention to things like jobs, the economy and the environment. Then like now, I was very concerned about the environment; it was a lot worse back then. Lest we forget, Lake Eire was declared dead and you couldn’t safely breathe the air in major cities. Many people seem unaware of the improvements and perhaps most think the opposite, but the environment is indeed better. So is the economy. In my economic courses back in college, I learned that unemployment of around 5% was “full employment” and almost impossible to sustain. I remember the stagflations and unemployment rates of 10%+. Of course, when I was apt to whine, my father would point to his youth during the 1930s. Now I hear that unemployment of around 5% compared to the Great Depression and economic growth of only 1% is called a recession. What great times we live in when such trouble we have is cause for gnashing of teeth.
It doesn’t get very much better than this in terms of opportunity, despite what politicians are promising. Maybe that is precisely the problem – it doesn’t get much better. Let me give a individual analogy. Alex has been working out for a year so that he can now toss around hundreds of pounds w/o much effort. He is worried re “plateauing”. It is a little sad to reach a goal, but at some point you are about as good as you can get. Society is not the same as an individual person. Experienced people understand that general conditions do improve – over time – and it is indeed possible for them to improve their own circumstances with hard work, patience and a little luck. But some aggregate measures will never get much better. It is not possible for unemployment to drop much below 5%. Some “problems” are merely tautologies. Half of all Americans will always earn less than the median wage, for example. And the weather is always bad someplace. If you look for reasons to be depressed you can find – or make – them, but why would you do that?
What I take a bit personally is the rotten information being generally believed about Iraq. I could sum it up like this, “Let’s call our victory a defeat because it was harder than we thought.” There are movies and TV programs about Iraq, none of them show our troops in a good light. An episode of ER was on my flight’s entertainment center. It featured a crazy, drug addicted and mistreated vet. It turned out that he had gone nuts because he had seen so many Iraqis abused. What kind of crap is that? I saw a variation of that on “Law & Order” a couple of months ago. We have to call attention to this. Some people in the media seem to be working up the same type of slander they pulled on the Vietnam vets, only this time they pretend to care about them as victims.
The true story of our success in Iraq would be more interesting. We have heroes. It is not even very hard to find them if you try.
Our troops are not victims and they certainly are not perpetrators. They are doing their duty in a difficult environment and doing it well. For most, their time in Iraq gives them valuable insights and makes them better citizens. It is a hard thing to do. Doing the hard things reveals character.
I blame the politically correct culture for these problems. We essentially have to downgrade heroism and bravery so that we don’t imply those not exhibiting these traits are not as good. We let people revel in victimhood. In fact, it is legally enforceable. Somebody claims victim status and it becomes legally hazardous to give him/her a hard time – even when they have it coming. Who knows how the lawsuit will go with a credible (if deceptive) victim? It certainly is considered bad manners to tell the truth and it is politically dicey.
When Phil Graham made his whiner comments, the whiners came out in force and whined that they were being called whiners. Of course, politicians distanced themselves from this and listed the many reasons why whining was appropriate.
Is this the way it is going to be? I don’t think so. Most of the Americans I meet are still self reliant. Most of us still take care of ourselves; we pay our mortgages on time; 95% of our workers have jobs and they dutifully go to them. We grumble about how things are (grumbling is not the same as whining), but we understand that OUR efforts will improve our situations. But many of us have the impression that we are part of a small and dwindling minority that practices these virtues. We do indeed look like a nation of whiners, not because most Americans are whining, but because the whiners dominate the debate and everybody is afraid to say anything, sort of like the bystanders in the “Emperor’s New Clothes” story.
We all have to make choices and we never can get everything we want. This is probably a good thing, but no matter whether we like it or not, it is just how things are. It is nobody’s fault. I understand that I run the risk of becoming a curmudgeon, but I just don’t see the crisis the media tells me about. We face challenges – as always – which we will overcome and meanwhile life is not bad. It is just not perfect. If you find yourself is a perfect world, check your pulse.
Who of us would want to live permanently in a different time or a different place? We live in a great country and it is a great time in history to be here. To pretend otherwise is dishonest and to believe otherwise is silly.
Above are Mariza & Chrissy at Mariza’s new place in Baltimore.
We went out to Old Rag in the Shenandoah today. The weather was beautiful. Old Rag is the best hike in Virginia. In the roughly eight miles, you get lots of variety, including very interesting rock scrambles and excellent views. I don’t go on the weekends, since it gets too crowded. On weekdays it is just right.
Below – This rock has been hanging there since the last ice age, or longer, but I am always afraid it will let loose just as I am squeezing below.
Alex & Espen are in good condition these days. I used to have to drag them behind me; now I am the one being pulled along. They were making fun of me. With each jump they asked me if I was worried about breaking a hip. I have to admit that I am not as nimble as I used to be and I am more likely to shimmy down and less likely to leap. You re better off, BTW, wearing softer bottom shoes. Stiff bottomed hiking boots protect you from the rocks, but it is good to have shoes that allow a little toe dexterity.
Below – ditto this rock
Old Rag is one of my “home places”. This is my 24th year of coming here. I first took the boys when Espen was only seven years old. They still remember that time, or at least remember the story of that time. It was a very foggy day and the low visibility gave the whole place a surreal, end of the world type look. Somebody brought a dog names Spike. We couldn’t see them, but we heard the group behind us. Now it is against the rules to bring dogs, with good reason. Dogs do not do well on the rocks and they might knock somebody off. In this case, it was Spike himself who had the problem. We heard barking and people calling to Spike. Then we heard somebody say, “Spike no.” After that, we heard Spike no more. What happened I don’t know, but I don’t think it was good.
Below – You can imagine the problems a dog might have climbing those rocks ahead of Espen. They are steeper than they appear in the picture.
My friend Doron Bard and I once hiked up here with his dog called Tuckahoe. I had to literally throw Tuckahoe up some of the rocks; Doron caught him and he did not suffer Spike’s fate, but we learned that dogs and sheer rocks don’t mix. Their little paws slip and canines just cannot climb as well as hominids.
Below – This used to be labeled “Fat man passage” but the PC crowd scrubbed it off.
Anyway, enjoy the pictures and do the hike. From Sperryville, go south on 522 to SR 601 and follow the signs. Nearby is another great hike in White Oak Canyon.
Below – How great thou art. Every time I am up in the hills, I feel newly inspired. The words of the old hymn come to mind: O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder, Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made; I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art, How great Thou art. Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
When through the woods, and forest glades I wander, And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees. When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.
Fits well, doesn’t it.
I am enjoying my trip home and I have to admit the thought of returning to Iraq is not a pleasant one. But, what can you do? I often make this mental experiment. Imagine you have lost everything and then you got it back. How lucky are you? I am lucky now and will be again.
Below – For the good (non-Iraq) times.
Below – Not all is well. Over the last 20 years almost all the hemlocks have died out, victims of the hemlock whooly agelgid, introduced from Asia in 1924. Invasive species are as much of a threat to our forests and ecosystems as global warming.
Hemlocks used to line this stream. It was dark and beautiful and the shade cooled the water. There is no easy replacement for the niche formerly occupied by the hemlock in Eastern N. America.
BTW – Espen & Alex wanted to drink the water. I think the water is clean, but drinking it is not a good idea. We each had two cans of Coke Zero & a salami sandwich. What other rations can you need for a hike like this?
Below is my tree farm draft article for the next issue of “Virginia Forests”. It has nothing to do with Iraq, but is part of my other life, as communications director for Virginia Tree Farm Project at the Virginia Forestry Association. I needed to write a short article for them and I just finished it. The picture is from my forest. It is one of the spots I like to sit and watch the water run. We don’t cut trees in the stream management zones, which account for around 30 acres on the farm. The picture was taken in January 2005, but it is not that different now except at this season the buds are popping and the wildflower are out. BTW – the pictures are just mine and I just like to look at them. They will not be part of the “Virginia Forests” publication.
The American countryside is threatened by development and urban sprawl as never before. The very concept of “rural” is increasingly strained as urban style communities and urban lifestyles reach to even the most remote parts of Virginia. This can be positive as new people bring fresh perspectives and new incomes breathe life into declining communities. But these shifts fundamentally change the character of the countryside. When significant numbers of owners and rural residents themselves no longer have their livelihoods significantly tied to the surrounding land, their perspectives are different.
This change happens in a variety of ways, some obvious others subtle. The most obvious is when someone from outside the local community buys a tract forest land. This has been happening for a long time, but the trend is accelerating. A wholesale change in ownership patterns took place over the past decade as forest and paper firms sold off large tracks of forest land to private individuals, investors and timber investment trusts.
The more subtle change in emphasis can take place due to inheritance or just changes in lifestyle. Relationships and feelings about the land change when long time resident farmers or forest owners begin to earn more or even most of their incomes from non-agricultural or non-forestry sources. Of course, children who inherit family farms often have an emotional tie to the land, but may lack practical ties or skill sets that keep them managing the land in same way.
This picture is from near the same spot as above, but during July.
A key attribute of a traditional family forest, or those owned by paper and forest product firms for that matter, is/was that these were working lands, used in multiple ways to include profit generating activities such as forestry, hunting and non-timber agriculture. When land changes hands, the new owners may indeed leave a forest intact. In fact, they may have purchased the land specifically to “preserve” what they believe is the local ecology. But preservation or changes in land management fundamentally alter its nature and that of the surrounding community by perhaps not engaging in those activities that traditionally linked the human and the natural communities. The idea of humans are active participants in the natural environment wisely and sustainably using natural resources is the basis of conservation but it is an idea that can be misunderstood.
The American Tree Farm System (ATFS) is adapting in response to the changes in ownership patterns, motivations and needs of our constituents. As it has done since 1941, ATFS is working to improve forest management through education and advice. Today there are 87,000 certified Tree Farms covering 29 million acres. Obviously certifications and inspections remain the backbone of the tree farm system, but increasingly education and outreach will take on greater significance. New tree farmers and new types of tree farmers will need to understand the nature of a working forest and its place in a sustained and healthy environment. Here are the boys in the pine plantation last year. We will have to do some pre-commercial thinning this summer so that the little trees can have room to grow & stay healthy.
Some of the education will represent a change in emphasis from how to sustain a multiple use forest to why they should want to do that. ATFS has often explained to owners how to manage their forests to produce timber while at the same time caring for clean water, providing recreational opportunities and creating great habitats for wildlife. It was taken as a given that owners wanted to produce timber and gain some income from the investment in their land. Many new owners may be less enthusiastic about making sure their land profitably produces timber at all. They may have bought the land as a home site or in order to create a preserve of some sort where forestry or hunting are not priorities. ATFS will increasingly need to explain why it is important to keep timber lands producing timber and why they need to be managed to do this.
Well managed forests producing wood, clean water, wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities are a great American tradition well worth keeping. Each generation of forest owners must learn or relearn the lessons of good forestry. As the demographics of forest ownership change, education becomes more important. ATFS understands this and is ready to provide the information and education that will keep Virginia a place of beautiful, well-managed and productive forests for years to come.
Much of Greece consists of islands. The Aegean is really a drowned mountain range with the peaks protruding above the water and the valleys sunk below. And the islands are very close together. You can usually see the next island from the one you are on. This invited exploration even by sailors who didn’t like to be out of sight of land.
Below is the Orthodox church on Aegina. Aegina is a big island, as you can see from the background.
We took a cruise to three islands: Poros, Hydra and Aegina. Poros was not very attractive. Well, the island was pretty but the houses were that 1960 socialist style. It was worth seeing, but not worth going to see. Hydra was beautiful. The natural setting was spectacular and the buildings were well constructed and good looking. There are no cars on Hydra, which makes it an exceptionally good place to walk. Aegina is the biggest of the three and it was an important center in ancient and medieval times. There is an ancient temple and a Greek Orthodox monastery. This island is fertile and is a paradise, with olive & pasticcio groves mixed with citrus framed by pine forests all overlooking the blue sea. The pictures do not do it justice, but look at them anyway.
Above is the Temple of Athesis on Aegina.
Cruising itself is not much fun. A cruise boat is like a big floating bus. But being there among the islands is great.
Below, Espen deals with the early wake time and the slow boat syndrome.
