by Winding Pathways | Jan 22, 2015 | Reflections/Profiles, Wonderment
“Hope” is like “Why”.
Jenion’s Blog, “Don’t Ask Me Why”, really stuck with me – How we use words to either ropel ourselves forward or hold ourselves back.
Her take was that “Why” – that annoying three year old habit of asking – is too often used to be an excuse for perceived injustices or not doing something. We revert to “three-year-oldism” as adults: “Why me?” “Why did this have to happen?”
Then, after Sunday’s service and sermon connecting Hope with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I looked at “Hope.”
“Hope” as defined is “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” Synonyms include Wish, Desire, Aspiration, Expectation, Goal, Aim, Plan. I listed these is ascending order of “just sittin’ complainin'” to “I can do this.”
The above words are compatible with the archaic definition – “A feeling of Trust.” Do we trust in ourselves enough to step out of complacency? Do we trust that available systems exist to help us along?
As the Reverend Jeff Briere pointed out, we put our keys in the same place so we know where they are. We put our glasses in the same place so we can get them easily and can use them. We store our phone numbers on our cell phones so we can quickly access them. Where do we put “Hope”?
His advice is to put “Hope” somewhere so you can find it easily. Wear it. Keep it clean. Nurture it.
We know that Hope is critical to survival and thriving. Elie Wiesel writes and speaks powerfully of Hope, the importance of Memory, and the human condition.
Yet, it seems a somewhat elusive quality. Without it, sinking into numbed sameness is easy. Deer Hunting With Jesus by Joe Bageant examines the hopeless conundrum of the working class folks who have been stiffed by the establishment. The working and middle income members of society who are our backbone, feel they are “making it OK” when in reality, they are sinking further behind – economically and in opportunity to improve.
Things can seem confusing and hopeless. What to do?
First, ask “Why?” Not in the whining tone of hopelessness. Keep asking “Why?” until you reach the root of your question..
Second find Hope – even if it is just a fragment. Then, Clean it off. Wear it. Keep it clean. Put it where you can easily find it. Build on it. Celebrate it. Share it.
Send Winding Pathways about how you cultivate Hope. What inspires you? Where do you keep Hope so you can easily find it? What image of Hope captures your imagination?
We’ve chosen for the featured image a double rainbow over Lake Okoboji, Iowa. These words from Genesis 9:13 of the New International Version of the Bible. “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” Hope.
by Winding Pathways | Jan 19, 2015 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Foraging, Preparedness
Few cold winter evening experiences are as pleasant as sitting before the woodstove soaking up the warmth of a fire. That heat is essentially solar energy captured by the tree through photosynthesis on past summer days and released by fire in the dead of winter.
There are plenty of good reasons to consider wood heat and lots of reasons to forget it. Heating with wood is a lifestyle that requires elbow grease to cut, move, split, and stack firewood. Wood needs to constantly be fed into the stove and ashes must be removed every couple of days. Although attractive and cozy, burning wood brings pieces of bark and dirt into the home. These can be downsides, but many people love to work with wood, and cutting and splitting are pleasures, not chores. Wood heat can also save heating money, especially if the fuel comes free.
We have two woodstoves at Winding Pathways. Years ago we ditched our romantic but inefficient fireplace and added a stove. They are much more efficient than fireplaces, meaning that more of the energy in a chunk of wood ends up making a room comfortable and less goes up the chimney.
Now is a great time to plan for wood heat for next winter. It takes time to buy a stove and have it installed. To lay in next winter’s wood supply nearly a year in advance is critical.
The wood of living trees contains water that must be removed before it will burn well. Cut and split firewood stacked in a dry breezy place takes six months to a year for evaporation to remove enough water to transform it into efficient fuel. Late winter is a great time to process wood for next winter. We like to have all of next winter’s wood ready by the end of this March.
Wood is solidified sunshine mixed with minerals. Not all wood is created equally. The energy contained in a chunk is directly proportional to its weight. Dry hickory, for example, is about twice as heavy as the same size hunk of cottonwood and contains double the energy. To learn the heat value of different tree species simply Google Sweep’s Library Firewood BTU Comparison Charts. This chart lists heat values of wood by both alphabet and heat (BTU) value.
Utah State University’s link includes heat value, ease of splitting, smoke emissions, how much a wood sparks and fragrance.
For example, a cord of Maple (Sugar) weighs 3740 pounds and contains 23.2 million BTUs. In contrast a cord of Cottonwood weighs 2040 pounds and contains 12.6 million BTUs of energy. This relationship shows a homeowner would need process and store about twice as much Cottonwood as Sugar Maple to yield the same amount of heat.
Wood is usually sold by the cord or 128 cubic feet. That’s a stack eight feet long, four feet high and four feet deep. Hickory, black locust, white oak and sugar maple are the heaviest common woods of eastern and central North America. Cottonwood, basswood, aspen and most pines and spruces are the lightest. Elm, cherry, silver maple, hackberry and ash fall in between. In a normal Iowa winter we burn about three cords of a blend of oak, black cherry and maple. We’ve burned our share of “poorer” woods like cottonwood and box elder because it was available and we were short of heavier species. Lighter wood generates wonderful heat. It just takes a lot more of it than if we had hickory or oak. Wood is our main, but not only, heat source. We have a natural gas furnace and installed a gas insert into the old fireplace. Both work well and keep the house warm when we go on winter trips and are not around to feed wood into the stoves.
by Winding Pathways | Jan 15, 2015 | Nature
A showy winter sight is deep orange to scarlet bittersweet berries dusted by snow. Often they are picked for holiday decorations.
Parts of North America are home to two wild bittersweets. One is a beautiful native that’s in rapid decline. The other is a fast spreading exotic that overwhelms even large trees.
Bittersweet can wrap around and smother a tree.
Oriental bittersweet is an aggressive twining vine that can climb a 60 foot tree and smother its foliage. The woody vine is sometimes upwards of four inches in diameter at its base. Oriental bittersweet thrives in open woods that allow sunlight to filter to the forest floor. It grows amazingly fast and produces yellow berries along the vine that split open to reveal scarlet fruits. The plant has bright green leaves are roundish.
In contrast, American bittersweet is neither invasive nor aggressive. Its leaves are oblong, and it produces flowers and fruits at the end of its vine. But, telling the difference between native and Oriental bittersweet is difficult. Buying at nurseries is not recommended.
Aggressive Oriental bittersweet hybridizes with and outcompetes its American relative. Unfortunately, the foreign species is becoming common as the native retreats.
Controlling Oriental bittersweet isn’t easy. Vines can be cut with shears or a hand saw. Small vines can be pulled from the ground, but rootlets remaining in the soil will sprout. Some herbicides will kill it.
People can help contain this aggressive plant by recognizing the difference between the American and Oriental species and not moving the seeds of the latter or using them for decorations.
by Winding Pathways | Jan 13, 2015 | Nature
People often tell us that they regularly see does and fawns in their neighborhood but hardly ever see a buck. “Where are they?” they ask.
Deer thrive in suburban and urban areas throughout the country. Although does are often seen, sighting antlered bucks is rare. Even massive ones with wide spreading antlers have the uncanny ability to stay out of sight in the midst of the city.
The best evidence of big bucks is a shed antler. Male deer begin growing them in early spring. By September they are full size and are used through the fall for sparring with other males and to bang against trees. Often the mere size of a buck’s antlers intimidates smaller rivals.
A male fawn is called a button buck and its antlers are tiny stubs that rarely protrude above the hair. For the next four or five years his antlers will be bigger every year but as the buck reaches old age his new antlers decrease in size each year.
Antlers are firmly attached the skull, but by late December the bond begins to weaken. Sometime between Christmas and late March they fall off the deer’s head, and for a short while the animal is antlerless. Most antlers drop in February and March, but usually the largest bucks drop theirs in late December and January.
Antlers are mostly composed of calcium. Rodents love chewing on them and recycle the minerals into their own bodies. By summer most shed antlers are gone.
Hunting sheds is a popular mid to late winter hobby. Some homeowners are lucky enough to discover one in the back yard, but usually it takes a search through an area with a high deer population. Predicting where sheds will be is difficult but often they are near a ravine or fence where the deer jumped. The slight jarring during a jump causes the antlers to drop off. Best shed hunting happens right after the snow melts in late winter. Shed antlers are usually white and get buried in fluffy snow. As soon as it melts they are visible from a longer distance. Binoculars can help find one.
So “Shed” your mid-winter blues, bundle up the kids and go outside on a deer “shed search.”
by Winding Pathways | Jan 12, 2015 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Energy Efficiency, Nature, Preparedness
People have the good fortune to sit in a warm home watching birds glean seeds outdoors in winter’s frigid weather. It is amazing that they remain active in temperatures that cause human frostbite after just minutes of exposure.
Birds have several adaptations that enable them to function in extreme cold. Perhaps most important is being clothed in highly efficient insulators – feathers. Even in our era of modern high tech insulation, goose down quilts and coats are warmer than any synthetic insulation, so the hundreds of feathers covering small birds keep them warm.
Birds have a high metabolism that produces toasty body heat but requires huge quantities of fuel. They must eat often and spend much of the day foraging. To fight the cold they devour high calorie foods such as weed seeds and frozen insects. But beef suet and sunflower seeds stocked in bird feeders also help keep them warm.
During extreme cold birds often overnight in the security of a dead tree. Tiny birds snugly pass howling blizzards tucked into small crevices. Wood is a relatively efficient insulator and birds squeeze between the bark and wood or in holes excavated by woodpeckers. Bird houses erected in spring to attract nesting wrens or bluebirds serve double duty as safe roosting sites.
Unfortunately winter is the season of death for many birds and other small wild animals. Cold, wind, snow, lack of food and predators take their toll and only a fortunate small percentage of young wild animals live until their first birthday.
This winter we have seen as many as four male and one female bluebirds at one time at our “dogfeeder” waterer.
During the winter provide plenty of seed and suet for the birds. And, remember that critical element – water!
Homeowners can help birds safely winter by protecting dead trees and erecting bird houses before cold weather arrives. Put the latter on your list to do this spring and give the birds a hand for next winter.
