The Hollosphere

Calaveras Big Trees State Park is about an hour’s drive from our place further up into the Sierra Nevada mountains. Where the snow is, this time of year. When my mom visited earlier this month, we took a trek on up to see the “vegetable monsters,” as the early 1800’s advertisers of the park called these living giants. Words and pictures certainly can’t do them the slightest justice, but here’s a couple of pictures anyway.

Here’s me with one of the little ones:

And my mom with a truly ginormous one:

Mom came to stay with us at Murray Creek earlier this month. I enjoyed her visit very much. Among the highlights were a labyrinth walk (including playing and toning with the family temple bowl when we reached the center), a trip to Angels Camp and Big Trees, Christmas tree decorating, and general merriment. From here, Mom flew to San Diego to visit her new grandboy, Graham. Mom is the first of my family to visit.

Here’s me, my mom, Conal’s mom, and Conal:

Labyrinth walkers:

Mom and Ann walking along Murraydale Lane near the labyrinth:

Today is the rainiest day I remember here at Murray Creek since April. It is more like a Seattle day than a California day. I smiled to notice that the Google weather forecast icons and temperatures for here and for Seattle are almost identical for this week. It has been raining non-stop since last night, including one period of extra heavy rainfall today that resulted in new baby creeks forming all of a sudden on the hill behind our house. Thankfully, our erosion control efforts are paying off and the chocolate-colored water is being diverted past the house with no harm done, other than a muddy driveway.

I’m snuggled up near the wood stove with the lappy. Being able to heat the house using wood we salvage from the property is pretty awesome, and gets me thinking about other ways to go “off the grid.” Conal and I are interested in solar power, and had heard from a friend that there were technological advances afoot. Turns out, they are afoot practically in our back yard.

When we not-very-seriously considered installing a solar system at our house last summer, the price was much higher than we had hoped it would be. Our considerings were quickly downgraded to never mind. But perhaps the cost of solar is about to get a lot less prohibitive.

I’ve just been reading about Nanosolar, a company based in Silicon Valley that today made its first commercial shipments of thin-film solar cells, according to a press release. I’m excited and inspired by this company’s story, and by what the future may hold for them and us. The new solar cells are no thicker than a layer of paint, and could be built into lots of surfaces. Home roofing materials, sure, but how about the roofs of trucks and cars? Neat!

I came across this wonderful quote a few days ago, and I just love it. It seems apt here:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

The folks at Nanosolar aren’t spending time grumbling about our addiction to fossil fuels or the high cost of alternative energy. They mapped out a daring path to make the old model obsolete, and seem to be well on their way to doing just that.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying listening to the rain and imagining what the world might look like if - I guess I should say when - affordable thin-film solar cells are readily available and in wide use.

My brother and sister-in-law, Scott and Kimberly, had their first child on December 4th. I’m an Auntie, for reals! Baby Croydon’s name is Graham Scott, and he weighed 6 lb, 14 oz, at birth. All is well with Graham and his adoring parents.

“If you gave me a million, zillion dollars and said give me a plant that doesn’t have E. coli, I couldn’t do it,” said Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “It’s not about the will. It’s about the ability.”

The quote above from this New York Times article (user account may be required), illustrates just one of the reasons for my shift away from a meat-centric diet. Mr. Osterholm is referring to the difficulty of preventing disease from entering the beef production system due to the bacteria-ridden, utterly icky process of high volume, factory farm butchery. Even if I didn’t get the shivers over the cruelty of factory farming, the yuck factor regarding the mud and poop that can’t help but be part of the process would scare me off steak anyway.

I’ve eliminated all beef and chicken, and nearly all dairy, from my diet. I have eaten an eensy bit of shrimp, halibut, and salmon in the last month or two, although I’m sticking almost entirely to fruits, nuts, vegetables, grains, and legumes. This evening for dinner, for example, I made a lovely green salad with nuts and dried fruits, steamed baby peas, and sweet potatoes with vegan buttery spread (Earth Balance — so awesomely deelish, non-GMO, and organic). I don’t miss cow one bit.

I’ve read that the amount of plant energy and water required to raise a cow is many times that required to sustain me directly. I like knowing that by choosing a vegetarian diet I’m consuming substantially less resources. Once raised, the cow of course then has to be butchered and shipped to me, consuming still more resources, including fossil fuels. And ultimately, the end product may be contaminated with poop! Ay carumba.

I adore animals and have enjoyed my friendships with a wide variety of pets including horses, rabbits, dogs, cats, turkeys, chickens, sheep, doves, pigeons, and goldfish. Although I’ve never owned a cow or a pig, I got to hang around those species as well through friends and as part of 4-H activities and fairs and such. I enjoyed them all. As a kid, a friend and I once scared the pants off our parents by running away from home because we were mad about my friend’s cow being butchered. My family dabbled in raising chickens, turkeys, and rabbits for meat. I ate the meat, and remember feeling unsettled and weird about it, aside from the unpleasantness of the butchering process itself.

When I think of the animal that a piece of meat came from, I really have no desire to eat it. It’s important to me to make conscious decisions in my life, and I think I’ve just been choosing to remain unconscious about eating meat. I don’t envision myself as militant about it, just more in touch with my own compassion for other creatures and my concern for making choices that result in a decreased environmental impact.

And back to the poop thing, I’m struck by how industrial farming encourages disease. Consider this excerpt from the Vegetarianism article on Wikipedia:

In 2003, an article in the Journal of Dairy Science found that between 30 and 80 percent of cattle carry E. coli O157:H7.^[47] In that same journal article, a quick fix was pointed out: Cows that are switched from a grain diet to a forage diet saw, within 5 days, a 1,000 fold decrease in the abundance of strain O157. But until changes like this are made, the source of many E. coli outbreaks will continue to be high-yield (industrial) meat and dairy farms.^[48]

More likely, rather than change the way cattle are fed or raised on industrial farms there will instead be pressure to find technological solutions like food irradiation, plans for HACCP, or simply cooking burgers longer. Suggestions like this have led some experts, like Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley, Michael Pollan, to suggest that “All of these solutions treat E. coli O157:H7 as an unavoidable fact of life rather than what it is: a fact of industrial agriculture.”^[49]

So, the meat industry apparently recognizes that, as part of the industrial model of production, poop happens–especially when frightened animals face horrific death and in some cases torture. Allowing animals to forage isn’t profitable, so hey, how about irradiating meat? Just get over it and cook my meat longer? Yikes.

How about instead I just say, “No meat no mo’!”

My beloved Conal recently gave talks at Google, Apple, and Intel in the Bay Area. I tagged along for the Google gig, ’cause, you know, who wouldn’t want to visit Googleland if they got the chance? Plus, I loved getting to see Conal do his thing. I had never been able to before, so it was a real treat for me. The venue for tech talks at Google was a really cool, high-tech arrangement of screens, cameras, and projection equipment in this spiffy mezzanine area. The talk was broadcast to other Google locations, as well.

Google gives its engineers 20% of their time to pursue their own projects. The Engineering Education (EngEdu) division brings in people from all over to speak about a huge range of topics. These “tech talks” are recorded and posted online. Google staff handles all the production details, editing and posting. Very cool. You can watch Conal’s talk here.

I enjoyed getting a peek at Google HQ. The campus surrounds a park-like main commons with a sand-filled volleyball court watched over by a FULL SIZE tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. There are grassy areas for hanging out and various patios outside the several cafes and restaurants surrounding the park. All the food is free for employees and guests. There is food and drink everywhere for whoever wants it. Lots of healthy and trendy stuff as well as standards. The Google primary colors are prominently in evidence, and the architecture is open and modern in feel, with white beams and glass, and is techie without feeling cold.

I had fun people-watching. My overall impression was of smart, bright, young (the crowd definitely tended toward youth) folks getting a chance to shake things up with their ideas and skill. I was fascinated by the feel of the place, which was, oh, kind of like a self-satisfied buzz of excited energy. These folks work at the center of the internet-verse, and they pretty much know they rock everybody’s world. At least, that is the underlying story I was making up about it.

When Conal spoke at Apple and Intel the next two days, I chose to goof off on my own since those were all-day engagements and I thought it likely I’d get rather bored. I had a great time exploring Palo Alto and visiting the Stanford shopping attractions.

Here is a photo of Conal speaking at Apple:

Conal at the podium was totally in his element. He seemed to be inspired and engaged and loving the interaction, welcoming challenges and questions, answering with grace and a depth of knowledge that confirmed my absolute awe of his amazing brain and heart. Ah, my sweetheart. ::melt::

I have been a complete slacker at blogging lately. This seems hardly fathomable, as blogging is about the least taxing means of employment I can think of. How slack must one be to fail to generate a sentence or two on the topic of one’s choice at the time of one’s own choosing? Sheesh. My camera broke not too long ago, and in most of the blog entries that occur to me I generally want to include a photo. Somehow, this obstacle to my creativity has been annoying enough that I most often decide not to post at all. Good thing I don’t make a living blogging.

For the time being, Ann has loaned me her camera, which her daughter Anna loaned to her but she says she never uses. Anywho, I’ll get around to taking some pics eventually, but today I would like to share with you an article I found on another site. If you know me, you probably are aware that I enjoy language, including purposely mangling English words and phrases in order to make myself, and perhaps others, laugh. This article had me giggling this morning.

You see, blogging is so easy, I can actually blog about another blogger’s article and call it a post. Neat. Now, back to my nap.

The following story was quoted to Conal in email recently. He shared it with me and I enjoyed it very much. The person who shared it with him had gotten it from the web page of John Greenfelder Sullivan, Powell Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Elon University in Maryland.

In a famous Zen story, a samurai warrior comes up to a little monk and says: Teach me about heaven and hell. “Teach you?” the little monk replies, “why you are a dirty, smelly, poor excuse for a samurai. Even your sword is rusty!” Insulted, the samurai, flush with anger, draws his sword and is about to cleave this insolent monk in two. A split second before he strikes, the monk says: “That’s Hell.” The samurai has a moment of insight. He realizes that this monk has gone to the very door of death to teach him. He fills with gratitude, his body relaxes and he sheaths his sword. At that precise moment, the monk says: “That’s Heaven.”

I was curious to see what this person was about, and I was even more inspired as I read over Dr. Sullivan’s writings. Wow. In a culture that places so much emphasis on “leadership” centered around making corporations bigger and more powerful, I’m grateful to know that there are beings such as Dr. Sullivan leading inspiring young people toward compassion, wholeness, and service.

Here is me. I am smiling, you can see. Why am I smiling? I am smiling because I so much enjoy our new washer and dryer. Aren’t we all lovely?

Over the last couple of weeks, Dave Bayette’s Tree Service has been working at our property as well as Ann’s property next door, and the Conklin place further down Murraydale Lane. Dave’s got some serious equipment including a monster chipper, a fleet of chainsaws, and a large truck to haul the chipped material, which also features a crane/bucket arrangement for high work in the trees.  This photo shows the truck parked in the valley bottom down by the creek at the old Chinese dam (the wall seen to the left of the truck).

Dave’s crew varies based on what needs to be done. At our place, he brought along four workers, one of whom was an experienced climber. The climber is the rather amazing person who goes up in the bucket to get the high limbs, or even crazier, scampers manually up trees with a chainsaw swinging from his belt. I’m completely impressed with the skill of the climbers. I can’t even imagine being up that high in a tree without hyperventilating, let alone hanging by one arm, operating a screeching chainsaw with the other, while at the same time managing how the cut pieces fall so that the process proceeds safely and without damaging the ground too much. Or the noggins of the ground crew working below. Talk about multi-tasking… I also enjoyed their knowledge of how trees grow and how best to trim them to encourage healthy growth.

The ground crew works like a well-oiled machine, clearing brush and downed limbs as they accumulate and putting it all through the chipper.  They worked very hard on the hillside below our house. We were able to do some clearing there this year, but these guys really gave us a wonderful jump on our vision of park-like landscaping all through the area. Here is a before shot taken in the morning:

And following is the same area that afternoon after they had cleared and chipped a huge amount of material, which they spread around the meadows as chips and mulch that will eventually disappear as it decomposes into lovely dirt. Sweet. Now the cleared areas will be easy to weed-eat and keep tidy and — wait for it — fire safe!!!!

Conal and I variously pitched in hauling and dragging branches and brush, sawing, and sitting around appreciatively watching the guys work. At one point, we were watching admiringly as Dave skillfully maneuvered the bucket up and around in the high canopy of a giant oak, working the crane’s angles to put himself in just the right spot for his next cut. It’s motion reminded me of the gut-clenching swing of a ferris wheel, only going in all directions instead of a nice, predictable circle. The other climber walked by us and I exclaimed to him, “You could charge admission for this show!” He grinned and replied, “Yep. The tree circus,” and headed off to refill his saw with fuel.

Dave works as hard if not harder than any of his crew. Here he is sawing away at an uprooted oak near our house that partially burned in the fire this past spring:

I think we made friends. The crew seemed to enjoy our company and help, chatting and cheerfully answering our endless questions about trees and saws and what have you. The chocolate chip cookies I baked for them were also a big hit. We’re looking forward to having them back again soon.