We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
We had a memorial hike for my dear late brother-in-law Bob this weekend in the Shawangunks. Around 20 of us I think, relatives and pals who knew and loved Bob. Bob, of course, had been the fittest of us all if you don't include my other sister's wonderful kids, in their 20s.
Minimal bouldering, just up and down hills. I prefer bouldering and so does Bulldog, but not everybody does. I love uphill bouldering, but downhill is a bitch.
Funny thing about group hiking and bouldering is that the group speads out, whether by fitness level or by conversation or nature-looking. Every once is a while, you need to reassemble for mapping, water, and a granola bar.
Afterwards, a late (3 pm) group brunch at Mohonk. You deserve a couple of beers. It's a 4th generation Bird Dog family getaway place, and Bob always loved it there.
Typical boulder field up there. Scramble up! It's good fun.
Next time, one of our famous urban death march hikes in NYC
Before I dig a little into this topic, a perspective and a few definitions.
Every Eastern gardener knows well how much nature wants to turn your garden into a grassy weed-patch, then into a woodland. Humans force nature to obey with great difficulty. Everyone who sanctimoniously bemoans deforestation in South America and Africa should first look out their window to see one's local deforestation.
Our Great Plains, it is believed, were at least partly the result of Indian burning practices and wildfire. And the Scottish moors? Much is the result of deforestation too, but they are beginning to re-plant. Permanent deforestation is definitely a bad thing from a conservation standpoint, but often not from a human economic standpoint. Manhattan Island is now pretty nice without the forest.
Clear-cutting, as opposed to selective logging, involves cutting almost every tree down in an area, with the intention that things will grow back. It is an efficient form of silviculture because, when the woods grow back whether re-planted or just re-seeded by Nature - most of the new trees will be ready for harvest at the same time. Unlike deforestation and selective harvesting, clear-cutting restarts the clock of natural forest succession, just as does forest fire or severe wind damage. Fire is a key to woodland health and diversity: we see the unhappy consequences of fire suppression in the West, with apocalyptic fires due to fallen dead trees rather than routine smaller fires which efficiently recycle forest litter. In an era of unnatural and probably foolish fire suppression by government (essentially a subsidization of the lumber industry and the vacation-home real estate business), only clear-cutting can imitate the normal cycle of forest succession and renewal, habitat diversity, and thus the species diversity, that conservationists seek.
(An aside on the subject of forest succession. This much-studied topic is difficult to discuss in any general way, because every habitat, region, latitude, altitude and soil has its own pattern of forest succession following disturbance. There are even areas where the normal climax forest is never achieved, as in some areas of the South where fire maintains fire-resistant pine forest in areas where deciduous trees would otherwise be the climax forest. Each stage of forest succession has specialized species which are adapted to it - and to it only. One example, from Ohio. I will need to do a piece just on the subject of forest succession, sometime.)
Which brings me to the subject of environmental concerns. I think of environmentalists as being of either the sentimental-esthetic sorts, the politically-motivated sorts, and the hard-nosed scientific sorts. This might be an unfair depiction, but I think it holds up much of the time. Mature forests are wonderfully attractive to the human eye, but, in most US ecosystems they have little biodiversity and support fewer species of plants and animals than transitional woodlands or woodland edges. Also attractive are lovely rolling green meadows, but they are about as natural as lawns, and it requires plenty of gasoline and machinery to maintain that unnaturally scenic, clean-cut condition.
The controversy, it seems to me, derives from the emotional, not the factual. It's my conclusion that clear-cutting, judiciously applied, preserving contiguous areas of mature forest and without destroying streams with erosion, best duplicates the natural condition of the life cycle of woodlands, which, in nature, are always a work in progress and never complete.
Nature is a dynamic, changing thing, but the human infestation of the planet begs for thoughtful stewardship, and sometimes that means compensating for our actions: it's our big garden, now.
Photo on top: An example of deforestation in the form of a Vermont hayfield
Photo below: Smokey the Bear, Capitalist Tool in the service of the lumber industry!
4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
4:8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
4:9 God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
4:11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.
4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
4:13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
4:14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world.
4:15 God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.
4:16 So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
4:17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.
4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.
4:19 We love because he first loved us.
4:20 Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.
4:21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
I haven't been to Sardinia yet (the land of little fish), but I have been to Sicily twice. In Sicily, it is easy to avoid pasta because they are more into rice and couscous for carbs. I still think Italian food would be better if Columbus' followers had not brought tomatoes to Europe.
Sicilian food traditions (a crazy mix of Arab, Greek, French, Spanish, etc) have lots of lemons, blood oranges, raisins, capers, pistachios, mint, eggplant, couscous, fennel, bottarga, and of course fresh seafood. Also, piglet. Also, especially, grilled octopus.
Re the cingihale stew - no, Romans never made that. They did not have potatoes until after Columbus.
And the chef who puts porcini with vongole? What? No. Procini are one of my favorite flavors, but with seafood?
Re the Mafia in Sicily - forget about it. They are a shadow government and they prevent crime in their own ways. It is a non-issue unless you have a business there.
Peco's Blues, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid Outtakes from 1974. An old friend who worked on the set of that movie asked somebody who that wierd-looking scruffy guy under that tree with a guitar. Answer, Oh, that's just Bob.
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Around here, anyway. It means they have laid their eggs, and do not wish to advertise their presence. It's not just Robins, it's all of the songbirds.
All the same, for the next several weeks the crows will be swooping everywhere to steal the songbirds' eggs and nestlings. They know how to find them.
In other breaking news, our wrens are back this morning. Welcome home, little friends.
Have not seen a warbler yet but our trees have not leafed out yet -still just tree flowers. Not ornamental, just yellowish tree blossoms spewing pollen.
I learned from one of those Italian cuisine Youtubes that "fresh" pasta, ie still not fully dried and packaged, is a waste of money. The comment was that "You're paying extra prices just for the water weight."
Not a big fan of pasta, really, because it feels like filling, empty calories to me. Sure, rare exceptions like when in Italy. Come to think of it, though, I do eat Thai noodles about monthly in noodle soup or Pad Thai, so there's that.
The point remains, though, that pastas were invented for food storage, carb storage like dried beans. They are made to be dried. Sheesh, years ago Mrs. BD and I made fresh homemade lasagna with a pasta machine. Worth doing it once to see what it's like, but after that a waste of time.
Twenty retired French generals call for military rule in the country if President Macron cannot halt society's 'disintegration' caused by Islamists— sparking political uproar ahead of elections
Syracuse course questions whether academia should stop teaching Shakespeare. Syracuse University is offering a course in the English Department this Fall, entitled “Why Shakespeare? Race in the Academy.”
Ribbon Snakes are long (up to 30 inches), skinny members of the Garter Snake family, found across the Eastern half of the US.
We saw one slithering along a pond edge in New England two weeks ago. They like to hunt near water and marshes for bugs, tadpoles, etc., but I've seen them sunning on woodpiles a ways from ponds.
I found a lengthy word with a non-Russian ending, unwittingly, inside a children’s storybook, and turned away from it with a strange kind of shudder.
That word contained the writhing of mysterious passions: The growls, the howls, the whistles and the senseless visions, assassinated horses’ vitreous eyes,
the sinuous streets, the evil-auguring constructions, a man, incarnadine, prostrate upon his back, the bestial motions of somebody’s avid hands!
And, once upon a time, how sweet I used to find it to read of funny rabbits who would dance in spring with guinea pigs on stumps beneath the moon.
But now the fateful word above my childhood tales, stormlike, has rushed! Gone is their old simplicity; and terrifying thoughts, during the doomful nights,
Seahorse Spotted In The Hudson River, 
I learned from one of those Italian cuisine Youtubes that "fresh" pasta, ie still not fully dried and packaged, is a waste of money. The comment was that "You're paying extra prices just for the water weight."
A new book: