O. C. F. Caretaker's Journal O. C. F. Caretaker's Journal"The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light
in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right
just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common
work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest
things in life."---Robert Louis Stevenson
Tuesday 30 November Yesterday I rebuilt and attached canoe racks to a couple of carts and got the canoes ready for the flood season. I put a vent in to seal the hole in the pumphouse roof left by the repair job there this summer. Steve and I went over to the new property where we put in the refrigerator we bought the other day. He cleaned off the roof, gutters, and grounds with the leafblower while I installed a light fixture, changed a switch and socket, and put in a shower rod and curtain. Later we went to Leslie's house for dinner, a staff meeting, and to sign Christmas cards. Leslie is off to the WTO protest in Seattle today---so lets hope that she doesn't get whacked on the head with a police baton. Today I cleaned up the Ware House for the umpteeth time, it has become my meditation. It is possible for me to spend many hours there puttering around there, slowly making improvements. I used the tractor to put away a few picnic tables then walked the Site and picked up things from the recent flood. So far things don't look to bad but it is only the beginning. I went into town and picked up a used oxy-acetylene rig for the Fair. Another month has come to an end and although we have yet to receive a frost, I have an good idea it will finally happen tonight as it is about 36 degrees Fahrenheit and the stars are out, meaning that the temperature will continue to drop. The cold of Winter is now almost upon us.
Monday 29 November Before very recently few Americans, myself included, had ever even heard of the World Trade Organization. Established in 1995, the WTO is the international organization which enforces trade rules between its 135 member countries. On the face of it, one would think that the promotion of international trade to be a good thing. In reality however, this organization actually exists as an arm of the large multinational corporations. Since the WTO was created, it has increasingly sought control over food and consumer product safety laws, environmental standards, and other issues which were previously the internal affairs of each member country. This is because the WTO rules allow countries to challenge each others' laws. Let's suppose a country passes a law that bans the importation of produce which contains a certain pesticide. The country of origin can appeal to the WTO's unelected, secret tribunal of three unaccountable trade bureaucrats, demanding to have the law overturned. Since the WTO's inception, every single environmental or public health law which has been thus challenged has been ruled illegal. The losing country has but three choices: change the law, pay reprisals to the winning country, or face sanctions---they cannot appeal the decision outside this organization. In almost all cases, the losing country simply abolishes its law. Another grave danger posed is to Labor. International globalization by corporations allows increasing profits through the hiring of workers from developing countries, all without costly tariffs or employee benefits, and at the expense of unionized jobs. In its current form, the WTO can function as a mechanism by which multinationals can avoid or even abolish trade and labor laws created by democratically-elected governments, which is why leaders of the AFL-CIO and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions are now demanding that WTO incorporate fair labor standards into its agenda. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have assembled for the opening of the World Trade Organization Conference tomorrow, hoping either to pressure the WTO to incorporate human needs into its process or to disrupt the WTO altogether. The television news networks (themselves owned by and operated as large corporations, and perhaps fearing legal repercussions from such a powerful financial entity) have downplayed the events leading up to the coming confrontation, tending to echo WTO propaganda. The Battle in Seattle will ally such unlikely forces as the far right to the far left and public opinion is likely to heat up considerably during the upcoming days. The streets will be blocked as protesters take to the streets and the backlash will be felt around the world. Log onto Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, the Citizen's Trade Campaign or the WTO Watch for more information.
Sunday 28 November Yesterday and today were nice days although today was a sunnier but a bit colder. The Eight is no longer completely flooded although it is still flowing across Snivel Road, Moz Road, and Sesame Street---which was the bed of Indian Creek before the US Army Corps of Engineers cut the current ditch during the fifties. Quite a bit of the usual washed up dimensional is apparent. Some of the bale dams that were not staked down have also been destroyed. Anna and Blake were out and canoed in the lots this afternoon. The Guidelines Group also met here with norma, Randy, Anne, Jim Sahr, and myself in attendance. We got through our proposed changes for the year and we are going to see if the Board can hold a Guidelines work session to expedite the process. Otherwise it has been a relatively quiet and uneventful holiday weekend.
Friday 26 November Today is Buy Nothing Day, which was started by the Adbusters in British Columbia seven years ago and has spread around the world. The biggest shopping day of the year is now also a now a day to rethink the materialistic consumerism that is so prevalent in our society. The big news around here is that the Eight is flooded. I don't think it was ever not raining yesterday. The storm system brought five inches of rain to the site. It was a much more dramatic entrance into the flood season than usual. I stayed away from the thronging masses, went canoeing, and built the new recycled recycling bicycle. My request for bikes in the Fair Family News has yeilded four bikes thus far and I resurrected one to pull a trailer that I also finished today. That features a series of speaker magnets mounted inline to a two by four. The magnet bar is suspended about an inch off the ground and sweeps up metallic objects such as rusty nails, screws, and old bottle caps in a four foot wide swath when pulled behind the bike. Four buckets can be used to clean the metal and other debris into. The entire contraption works great, even if I do say so myself.
Thanksgiving Day In 1690 Puritans crossed the Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower and spent their first Winter in America at Plymouth Colony, which basically meant having to camp out in crude shacks. They were ill prepared for the cold and harsh New England weather. Almost half their number died of starvation and exposure and the rest would have certainly perished if not for the help of the local Wampanoag Indians. It is a gesture that the tribe almost certainly would not have extended had they had only had the advantage of hindsight. But of course they hadn't a clue, and so with their help, a subsequent good harvest and adequate new shelter insured the survival of the English. Governor William Bradford declared a day of thanksgiving and prayer---along with a outdoor feast which ended up lasting three days. Ninety members of the Wampanoag tribe were also present, and they engaged in friendly competitions with the settlers. Although the exact date is unknown, the feast probably took place in late November 1691. The new tradition was celebrated on and off for years, with an enthusiasm that most likely depended for the large part on the severity of the previous Winter's weather. On 26 November 1789, George Washington issued a proclamation calling for a nationwide day of thanksgiving for the establishment of the United States Constitution. Thomas Jefferson later discontinued it, calling it "a kingly practice." In 1863, Sarah Josepha Hale, the author of the poem Mary Had a Little Lamb, convinced Abraham Lincoln to proclaim Thanksgiving a national holiday. In 1941 Congress decreed that Thanksgiving should fall on the fourth Thursday of November, in order to allow more shopping time before Christmas. Thanksgiving, thankfully, is one of the few holidays which merchants have not figured out a way to make big bucks on and I like it for that reason. Grocers will sell more food but that profit is averaged out once everyone eats leftovers for the next week. Airlines and trains do a booming business, but that only helps make up for all the empty seats the rest of the year. Thanksgiving Day is the most traditional time for families to get together to watch football, making it the busiest travel time of the year and the cause of some colossal traffic jams.
Wednesday 24 November The thing about having a website is that I can sound off whenever I feel like it, although I try not to put it to that use very often. In the much larger sense it is a far greater thing that we live in a democracy where we enjoy freedom of speech and a free press. The tradition of Letters to the Editor is one of these time honored freedoms, and in fact our own beloved Fair Family News devotes space each month for that very purpose. This is a good way for any member to be able to communicate opinions to the rest of the Fair Family. Human nature being as it is however, those letters tend to be used to find fault with one another. Nothing wrong with that, criticism is the first step towards making improvements, and even when it is pointed directly at me I wholeheartedly support the process. This month's issue had an abundance of scathing letters and I attribute it, in part at least, to Seasonal Affective Disorder. For example, in one letter the paid employees are accused as being dangerous and powerful players in the political game, while in another there are charges of "manipulations, half truths, and mismanagement of assets." To which I have to say, lighten up people. Think about what a wonderful and unique thing that the Fair is. There is nothing else quite like it. It is a bold and successful experiment. It is one of the very definitions of this community. Sometimes things might not be completely to one's liking but here is a place where you can roll up your sleeves, pitch in, and make changes---rather than just complaining about it. That is what I always try to do, and although I am certain to make some mistakes, my intentions are usually good. I am charged, along with the Site Manager, with stewardship of the Land. A lot of what I do may not even be noticed because it involves cleaning up the Site and restoring it back to Nature. Of course if it happens that I rehabilitate your campsite then I quite naturally become The Evil Bastard. Old Abe Lincoln said it best---you can't please all the people all the time. Let's just try and get beyond our petty bickering, squabbling, and sniveling. Instead of tearing each other down we can learn to accept each other's weaknesses and work cooperatively together. The Fair Family will become much stronger as a result.
Tuesday 23 November Back from Washington after two days on the train and two days of retired life. It was lot tamer this time around, compared with last year when Clif and I had quite the adventure attempting to fly straight up through a wicked storm, and so I'll have zero complaints about the minor things like the train being a couple hours late. While there we saw a movie called THE STRAIGHT STORY**** at the Grand Cinema, Tacoma's version of the Bijou. It was the story of a 73 year old guy who goes to visit his estranged brother, who happens to live three hundred miles away in the next state. Unable to drive, he makes his journey on a riding mower. David Lynch directed so there are a couple scenes that bear his signature, but on the whole it is a G-rated, wholesome movie that your mother would love. (Mine did!) Back here at the Fair, I did some stake and tie operations in anticipation of the first floods of the season. Miss Piggy's Lot has become saturated and is covered with some large puddles at this point. I met Steve at the in town office and we went over to Saint Vincent de Paul's in order to purchase a refrigerator for the Hubbard Cupboard kitchen. I purchased a few things at Jerry's to install there as well. Steve left from town and will be off visiting with his family until Monday.
Thursday 18 November A foggy cold day and I spent it with Palmer over at the Hubbard Cupboard. Naturally we felt quite compelled to start a honkin' big fire and chuck in anything vaguely burnable. We loaded up Palmer's little pickup with the savable stuff and the rest of the refuse of the former owner on into the Site Truck. We finished cleaning out the garage, the mini-basement, and around the outside. It could still use another round but at least the place is starting to lose a little of its trailer park chic. Eventually we headed back to the Ware House to unload his truck and top off the Site Truck with some of the old metal junk that I keep accumulating around here. Foremost among this were the two old dentist chairs that used to belong to Water Crew and were the very definition of ugly, and which therefore had been on my hit list forever. At the Bolton Hill Transfer Station there was something primordially satisfying when our thousand or so pounds joined the rest of the metal scrap at the bottom of the huge recycling dumpster with a resounding clang. Yaahhh! Thank you Palmer for your enthusiastic help. I'll be gone tomorrow until Monday night and will resume the Journal when I return. Go Ducks!
Wednesday 17 November I'm headed out this weekend up to Washington State for an early Thanksgiving with my folks, and thereby avoiding the rush and keeping coverage of the Site while Steve leaves for his Thanksgiving next weekend. Today therefore, I was getting things in order around here. I cleaned the Yurt and the ground floor of the Ware House (which admittedly were my messes in the first place), and also reorganized and consolidated all the coolent, motor oil, and a bunch other such stuff. In the evening I met up with Hilary, Doe, and Anne to see THE MESSENGER***, which had some great battle scenes and captured some of her visonary episodes. In the end I did not think that it quite did justice to the legend, but it is still worth seeing. I had done a bit of research thinking of doing an entry about Joan of Arc, but evidently ran up against the the same problem that the filmmakers had--- that is the difficulty in getting the complete story across in so many words. While I was driving back to the Fair, the fog was thick enough that I eventually was forced back into third gear by just the sheer density of it.
Tuesday 16 November Northwest Youth Corps were here bright and early, to volunteer a half day of work. Their supervisor, Dennis Ross, has a hacky-sack booth here at the Fair and wants to try and volunteer some time annually as a sort of reward to the kids who end up getting some of the worst jobs imaginable. I wanted to run them through the bushes collecting dimensional and give them a bit of a nature experience. Instead though, we worked at bucking the last of the hay and straw bales, not much fun in the best of times but these were soaking wet and heavy and it was raining---making for miserable work. We cleaned out the Drum Tower stash and down around Crafts Lot. We did manage to clear one load of dimensional from that perennial sore spot of mine, Shangra La. The lots are in the beginning stages of flooding even now, and moving the trucks around was creating some mud. It will probably be the last time we use vehicles in the Eight or off road again until next spring. After cleaning out the trucks and storing the tools, I went to Jerry's and bought new doorlocks and installed them on the old Hubbard house. Apparently there will be some applicants looking at the place soon. I am curious to see who our new tenets and my new neighbors will turn out to be.
Monday 15 November It rained last night, but today was another picture perfect day. The big fire of yesterday was almost completely burned out. Using a magnet I throughly sifted through the ashes and picked up a couple bucketfuls of nails. I raked the site and distributed the ashes, after which I lugged a few unburned ends, a bunch of pier blocks, tools, the buckets of nails, and miscellaneous trash across Indian Creek and up to be sorted at the Ware House. Old Security Tower is just a memory. I thought I was settling in to some after hours welding fun when Steve came to remind me that we had an Executive Session to attend---and we were leaving in fifteen minutes. I quickly showered the ash off and we headed in. The meeting was the presentation of the employee evaluations to the Board. After that there was a workshop at the Presbyterian Church concerning a proposed Camping Code of Conduct. I really can't understand what all the fuss is about. My campsite has a private porcelain toilet and shower, a stocked refrigerator, a big screen TV with seventy channels, and a hot tub. Doesn't everybody's?
Sunday 14 November This morning a meeting of the Most Honorable Royal Order of the Termites was called to order---and the old Security Tower was duly razed and heaped upon a ceremonial pyre. Built well before my time, the substantial structure had become rotten and dangerous. Yesterday broke the high temperature record and today was another gorgeous sunny day.
Saturday 13 November Yesterday I missed the entry and therefore the opportunity to say that it was the one year anniversary of this Journal. It has been a lot of fun and I have leaned a lot from doing it. Amazingly, yesterday it was warm enough that I worked in a tee shirt all day as I finished filling up the sixpacks and returning all the hose carts to the pump house. Here is a snapshot of what it is like out here right now. There are lots and lots of wild mushrooms out besides and certainly worth a visit. This morning we put away the barrels and other miscellaneous things that Recycling and Water Barrel Crews neglected to take care of. It was a beautiful day, warm without a cloud in the sky. Arrow and Mike were working in traffic and David Hoffman was also here as usual. Jan VanderTiun rode his bike out to discuss the proposal we are going to make for a capital project next year---a bike that will be capable of replacing a gator. If all goes well we will build a low geared, heavy-duty, dual recumbent quad cycle with a bed that will have an eight hundred pound capacity. In the evening we all headed into town to attend David and Sandy Liberty's going away potluck party at their house.
Thursday 11 November Yesterday I did the my monthly Long Tom water quality testing then dropped of the equipment at the BLM office. I did some banking, replugged the parking meter for the maximum 45 minutes, then went to an appointment for a Hepatitis-A shot. After filling out necessary forms I was lead to a room to watch a video about all the various other shots that were offered. Eventually the doctor enters and proceeds to explain why I should be immunized for practically everything. Thanks but I just want what I came for, please, and let me out of here. There is no way to hurry up the process that is geared to prying open your wallet. Finally I was freed to discover the inevitable parking ticket. I stopped by the County Office to pay property taxes and visit Municipal Court to pay my fine. Best to get things like that behind, but happy was I to get back to the Country Fair after such a fleecing. I then proceeded to chop up bike frames to begin my latest Frankenstein creation and ended up happily working until way late---the reason I didn't post last night. Today I helped Scott Franzien replace some loose railings at the WOW Hall. It was a place that I called home for several years and a place that I still like to put volunteer time into occasionally. Later the mad scientist could be found, again burning the midnight oil out in his laboratory. A sizzling electrical arc, six thousand degrees hot, fusing cold steel together in a bright shower of sparks, silhouetted the sick and twisted zealot against the rainy black night. Not even the most half-witted fool would dare to distract him from his diabolical experiments. In fact there is seemingly no terrestrial force strong enough to foil this madman from achieving his master scheme of world domination with mutant bicycles.
Tuesday 9 November Yesterday I did in fact have a sick day, sleeping in, curling up on the couch with the cat, watching old movies on TV, and sipping hot drinks. I felt the better for it too. In the evening Steve and I went in and met with the Personnel Committee. About the only noteworthy thing is that they want us to begin having monthly staff meetings. Personally, as the one probably furthest out of the loop, I feel like this is a good idea. When I worked at the WOW Hall our weekly staff meetings were about the only time we all had to actually talk things over even though we all worked in the same building. For all the believers in instant karma out there, I paid for yesterday's luxury in a big hurry, spending a damp day blowing and raking leaves, and filling the six-packs. The vault toilets can potentially float up and crack from the hydrostatic pressure of the rising ground water---to prevent this they must be filled with water to weight them down. Eventually the flood waters will overtop them and for that eventuality we block the holes with fitted cement plugs that must weigh a hundred pounds each.
Monday 8 November The Space Shuttle boasts two huge solid booster rockets attached to the main fuel tank. These boosters are made by a company named Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed them would have preferred to have made them larger, but were limited by the fact that they have to be shipped to Florida by rail. The train must pass through mountain tunnels that are only slightly wider than the railway itself, and in the United States the distance between the railroad rails is four feet, eight and a half inches. How did the our first railway executives, in all their wisdom, arrive at such an obscure number? Well, that.is the way they were engineered in England, and US railroads were built to English standards. The English built their trains in that way because that was the gauge of the existing pre-railroad tramways. Turns out the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they previously had used to build wagons---and therefore went ahead and used the same measurements. Now then, why did the wagons have that odd wheel spacing? Actually, if they tried to use any spacing other that that one they risked the wagon wheels breaking, because that was the spacing of the old wheel ruts that were in the roads at the time. The long distance road system in Europe had been built by the Imperial Romans to link the Empire. The original ruts had been created by the wheels of their war chariots, which having all been made to the same specifications in Rome, all had the same four foot, eight and a half inch wheel spacing. Surely by now you are wondering how the ancient Romans arrived at this particular specification for their chariots. It is for the very practical reason that this was just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two horses. The next time you are wondering what horse's ass came up with some seemingly off the wall stipulation---you may very well already have guessed at the right answer.
Sunday 7 November Last night I felt just sorry enough for myself to blow off the daily entry. Today I feel even worse but I enough has happened over the weekend that I feel obliged to file a report. Yesterday David Hoffman was here and we were down in front of Main Camp picking up yet anouther load of odds and ends before the floods come. After lunch we fed an ill advised campsite to the chipper, just as I promised that I would. Today the VegManECs were here and placed and staked the flood control bale dams and filled new sand bags to weight them down with. Our Guidelines group met here at the Yurt and we discussed some cosmetic changes we would like to see, continuing our quest to make the Guidelines make better sense. In two weeks we will work on more specific issues. This evening Hilary and I saw the movie BEING JOHN MALCHOVICH***. An very interesting premise that gets slightly old by the end, but worth seeing. BRINGING IN THE DEAD**** is, for my money, the best thing out there right now that I have seen, a hallucinogenic ride that has strong social commentary. Tomorrow could very well be a sick day for me the way I am feeling now.
Friday 5 November It is Guy Fawkes Day in England, a holiday when his effigy is burned in huge bonfires. The incident, which has now become known as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 , was an attempt to blow up the House of Parliament, the King, and his Lords. The plot has entered the annuals of folklore but it is doubtful that the real story will ever be known. It is also doubtful whether the weather would have allowed much of a bonfire around here today, and the gunpowder would have been pretty damp besides. I unfortunately am nursing the initial stages of a cold. It always starts with that little scratchy feeling throat, and I can deny the inevitable is happening at that point. Gradually it creeps into the sinuses and reality sets in. Sneeziness, runny nose, red eyes, and a general congestedness follow in turn as the sickness seems to move through the head and body. It's that old familiar feeling that often accompanies the change of the seasons. Wisely I stayed working inside the Ware House while Steve, Dennis Todd, and City of Veneta officials met out in the pouring rain, staking out the actual boundary for the land swap. If nothing is done about a cold it will last a week---but if plenty of medication, liquid, and rest is taken it will be gone in only seven days.
Thursday 4 November The State of Oklahoma celebrates today as Will Rogers Day. This honors the legendary humorist, who was born in Indian Territory on a large ranch in the Cherokee Nation, on 4 November 1879. As a youngster Will was taught by a former slave to use a lasso to work the cattle on the family ranch and dropped out after the tenth grade to join a cattle drive. He always regretted that he hadn't finished school, but he never stopped learning. At the 1893 world's fair in Chicago Will saw a performing trick roper thrilling the crowds. Returning home he spent endless hours.honing his skills. As he grew older Will became so skilled at roping that he could throw three lassos at once---one rope would catch the running horse's neck, a second would hoop the rider, and the third swooped up under the horse to loop all four legs. He would also rope a rat with a piece of string. He began working at wild west and vaudeville shows, where he started telling small jokes. Before long his folksy down home wisdom became more prized by his audiences than his expert roping. Will Rogers became the star of Broadway and Hollywood, the highest paid entertainer of his day---with the sole exception of the five year old child star, Shirley Temple. He was also a popular radio commentator, wrote six books and more than 4,000 syndicated newspaper columns. Through it all, Will Rogers remained a simple Oklahoma cowboy, describing himself as a "poet lariat". "I never met a man I didn't like," was his oft repeated credo. He gave his own money to disaster victims and raised thousands for charity. He traveled around the world three times, a guest of kings and presidents. He loved to fly and repeatedly criss-crossed America by air. In 1935 Will Rogers and fellow Oklahoman Wiley Post were seeking to establish the polar route to Russia in a single-engine hybrid sea plane. Post was a celebrated aviator who had become the first person to fly solo around the world and had lost an eye in an oil field accident. Near Point Barrow, Alaska, they touched down on an inlet to seek directions from a hunting party. After sharing food and conversation, they returned to their plane, taxied into position and soared skyward. Seconds later the plane's engine sputtered and it plunged into two feet of water at the edge of the icy Arctic Ocean. Wiley's watch was smashed at 8:18 p.m., which would still have been daylight conditions. Will's pocket watch still was ticking at 3:30 AM when a rescue party finally arrived in a whaleboat. Both were dead. Will Rogers was 55 at the time. America mourned the loss of its favorite son---a brilliant political satirist whose straightforward attitudes on life reflected the plain, simple values of the late nineteenth century cowboy culture.
Wednesday 3 November About a month after the the historic launch of the first satellite on 4 October 1957, the Soviets placed Sputnik 2 into orbit. Aboard was the first earth creature ever to venture into space--a small stray dog found on the streets of Moscow. Previously Russia had flown two other canine cosmonauts in a rocket forty-three miles above the Earth. These dogs were returned alive by parachute. Dogs in the Russian space program were picked for their calm demeanor and underwent extensive tests before being sent into space.They were trained to live in cramped quarters, wore space suits, and ate jelly-like food. They were put in a simulator so they could adapt to the roar and vibration of the rocket's engines. On 3 November 1957, Laika (which means "Barker" in Russian) was hermetically sealed inside a capsule mounted atop a converted intercontinental ballistic missile. The half ton satellite, six times heavier than the original Sputnik, was launched into an orbit 937 miles above the Earth, circling every hour and forty-two minutes at a speed of 18,000 miles per hour. It carried transmitting equipment that measured cosmic rays, temperature and pressure. Radio Moscow reported that " the functioning of scientific instruments and control of the living activities of the animal are taking place normally." Unfortunately for our cute furry conscripted passenger however, safe reentry procedures had yet to be developed---and so after about a week of orbiting, with Laika's oxygen supply running out, she was anesthetized. While her life slipped away, Laika captured the hearts of millions of people around the world. The capsule, still attached to the booster rocket, remained in orbit for another 162 days before burning up upon reentry into the atmosphere. At least thirteen other Russian dogs were launched into orbit, of which five died during flight. Two others were killed when their rocket exploded on the launch pad. Thanks in large part part to the unwilling sacrifices of these brave dogs, the stage was set for Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to become the first human being to travel into space in 1961.
Tuesday 2 November Steve and I took advantage of the good weather to seed the path from Pooh Corner to Shady Grove. We're using four year old seed with marginal germination weather---but soil conditions are perfect. I ran the leafblower almost all day. Steve followed behind coreplugging, seeding and raking. Strapped to a noisy internal combustion engine and removing the natural ground cover, all the while breathing noxious fumes, definitely runs counter-intuitive to my brain. If a Martian came down from space and I was the only thing that he saw, surely it would throw into question the sanity of the whole human race. However, I am on board with the whole green path vision and I think there is a good chance we can make it work with hard work. Establishing a strong turf in the various pocket parks and stages around the Fair is definitely a good viable alternative to the current practice of a layer of straw. In fact, these areas are less impacted (and therefore less compacted) than the paths and should be relatively easy to plant and maintain. We are incorporating them as we go. It grew dark almost suddenly as we finished up, at a little past five o'clock.
Monday 1 November The month has started out beautiful and sunny. I spent time this morning rearranging stuff out in the vehicle shed so that Little Hank can squeeze in. After over two inches of rain in the past week, irrigation is no longer necessary--- so I used the tricycle to reel in all the hoses from down in the Eight. Steve is back today from helping out with the wine harvest on his brother's farm. There was an Executive session in town at five and I used that as an excuse to get out of here for a bit and dink around town. After that meeting it was time for the regularly scheduled Board of Directors meeting, which takes place on the first Monday of the month, which was also the first of the month, this month. It was the first offical meeting of the new Board.