Streams and Trillium

This is Morrison Run, a stream barely 1/2 mile out of town and at the edge of miles of wilderness in the Allegheny Forest. The dog and I walk here regularly, as well as along many old logging trails and oil and gas roads. The flower is White Trillium, which I discovered is very fragile to being disturbed ( it may not bloom again for several years if picked) thus is a protected species in some states. It's not all that rare here but still nice to find along the roadside in wet woodsy areas. The pond is an old logging pond about a mile upstream of the other picture. In the old days I presume that the logs were stored here then floated down the stream to the Allegheny River by releasing the water. From there they went to Pittsburgh and beyond. Logs are transported by truck these days,and are still a world class export of these mountains.

A Trifling Paperback from AmazonKindle $3.99

Of maybe 150 pages considering all the time and effort I put into it, but I am satisfied as to the quality of it's content at least. So what now to do with 'Anti-Clock,Walking Across the Country'... look for a publisher or upload to Kindle or print copies meself and hand them off to passersby? One more piece of kindling for the dollar bin perhaps...In the meantime copies can be purchased from Amazon Kindle for $3.99 Thanks

APRIL SNOW

After four days of rain and snow it cleared to blue sky today, and although there was no accumulation in Warren, a thousand feet up on the mountain about five inches of snow fell, quickly melting in this April sun. The pictures show the extent of the prior canopy foliage as well as the dog investigating some bear tracks. A few branches snapped off because of the additional strain but overall I think this will be gone in two days with few ill affects. I'm not sure what will become of the cabbage, spring azure, tiger swallowtail and red admiral butterflies that had emerged, nor the flowers-mostly violets, dandelions and adders tongue as well as domesticated varieties, nor of the buds and flowering trees , but it looks so far that they all will survive unharmed. It was 72 degrees on the 20th, and in the high thirties/low forties for a couple days, so strange weather indeed. The natives tell me this is not unusual but the Buffalo news claims that a measurable snowfall like this had only occurred three times since 1884. At any rate, with temps back in the fifties I expect spring to come along any day now. March and April simply changed places.

New Machines

Beth bought a 'Prius C Two' on March 27th, and here are some impressions: First, mileage- The EPA figures are pretty accurate, and we get at least 50mpg in real world driving. Slightly less with all highway driving and more with all city. Our first tank was 54.5 mpg but we have not measured again with diligence.The on board computer that tracks MPG is pretty accurate-maybe a little optimistic by a mpg or two- and that varies from the low 40's mpg when we are climbing a long hill and really gassing it to over 90mpg if we are going slow in the city and are using electric power only. The car automatically switches in and out of electric but really only uses pure electric up to about 20mph and only so long as the battery lasts..If the voltage drops too low and/or speed gets above a certain range the engine automatically turns on. All of this is unnoticeable except by the relative silence of battery (EV) mode versus the sound of the engine. There are 3 modes EV-pure electric...which we never use, but you could for a mile or two if you wanted to be real quiet or if the gas engine died. ECO- which automatically uses both electric and gas but limits how high the engine can rev to save gas, and 'regular' mode which is the same as ECO except the engine can rev higher. To use either ECO or EV you have to push a button on the console near the shifter. Really, the only difference between 'regular' and 'ECO' is the engine revs, and the little screen ( the "Eco Score " ) on the dash has a little gauge which shows the driver how much gas he/she is/is not wasting. So if we are careful pulling away from a start and not flooring it into what the gauge calls "power", we can make great mpgs in either mode. We keep it in regular mode 90% of the time, and I assume that ECO mode just activates more software so why do that.. This all sounds complicated but is not...What a hybrid does is make you conscious of your driving habits and shows how wasteful jackrabbit starts and climbing hills and high speeds are to mileage. The difference between going lightly with your foot and flooring it can be 5-10 mpg ! So staying at speed limits such as 55mph on the highway returns over 50mpg and 70mph drops mileage to 45-47...By being careful on the back roads and out of the "power" range as much as possible and by coasting down big hills and to a stopsign- which (along with normal braking) recharges the battery and increases mpg's-we can average 55mpg to 60mpg without feeling like a slug. The on dash screen tells you what is happening so it becomes a video game with yourself to see how well you can do. Otherwise the car handles well and feels nimble and the seats and driving position are comfortable and the automatic climate control and all the other accessories work fine, although we do not use Bluetooth so cannot comment on that...In deciding what to buy we figured that the initial cost had finally dropped low enough that the PriusC could compete with other small cars and the payback time for the gas would not be too long.. For instance, the well rated Honda Fit and Hyundai Accent are cheaper but only get real world 32-33 mpg... a big difference between that and 53 mpg...so the PriusC is both green and Fun to drive! :) .........
       As for the Yamaha's, they are TW200 dual purpose bikes I bought used last Autumn and have been tooling around the area with. The red and white one is an '87 with about 12,000 miles on it and the silver one is an '04 with 4,000 miles. My impression of them is that they are excellent all around motorcycles that are perfect for back roads and slow trail riding. On the road their sweet spot is below 45 mph but they will hold 55mph if need be and off road they will climb any trail you throw at them-kind of like an ATV with those big tires that truly allow you to go anywhere, which is very rare in modern motorcycles. The eventual plan will be to carry one of them behind an RV when we travel in order to cheaply explore wherever we end up. Between the motorcycle and bicycles and our feet we should be able to go anywhere :)

Me Mum

2011 Was a great year...married to a wonderful woman, and we still have our health and wealth and so far there is no snow in Warren!...My mother spends most of her time sitting and sleeping at home, but manages to move around the house with her walker and still bakes and reads and does her crossword puzzles in between naps. She is approaching 88 years in April and I noticed her muttering to herself at the table this morning after it took her five minutes to remember that she was reading the news paper, as she always does during breakfast. Her intact,sensitive spirit apologized for her loss of mental faculties, and today I found a piece of paper with the words "Sorry, I Am crazy." near a small drawing of a crying face...this because she misplaced some Christmas cards a few days ago and thought she had been impatient with us when we found different ones in her desk which she had no recollection of possessing. I'm not sure what the future holds but she seems to be happy in her simple life and claims not to be afraid of dying. We convinced her to drop her supplemental health insurance which at $320 a month had returned maybe $500 in bill payments over the past 6 years, a time period which had included a week long hospital stay. Because she will not want any drastic procedures to prolong her life, paying $4,000 a year with a pitiful return like that was just a scam, so Medicare and bank savings will suffice. Too bad she had not been saving that money all along, for she'd have put another $20,000-$30,000 in the bank....but fear of illness and whatever will do that to people. It was her choice. As it is she still spends about $200 a month out of pocket for her medicines, but probably at some point she will recognize them as pointless too.
-Finally, the book is finished, although with every reading I find things to edit and improve... it will be incumbent upon me to let it go soon.

Been a long time since I’ve posted here.. yet all is well with everyone in Warren and elsewhere within my personal circle- never mind what the pessimists in the media say about the state of Americans. Yes, Washington is dysfunctional, but that’s news? I look into the mirror and around me on the streets and see that everyone is still getting fat, so things are pretty good in the old U.S. of A. as of now. Will we descend into anarchy if we don’t get our finances in order? Maybe…but I’m not one to worry about living in a tent whatever happens…
Beth and I passed last weekend at the Quick Chek balloon festival in New Jersey with my daughter in law Barb-had a great time, second only to the festival in Albuquerque- and then floated down a river on inner tubes with my son Skylar…No better way to spend a hot after noon!In unrelated news, Beth and I are also considering buying a new car for better gas mileage-likely a Prius or maybe an Elantra…both are 40 plus on the highway. My Geo gets that but is not a long distance driver for the trips east.
Me mum now uses a walker to get around and is mostly housebound, but still relatively sharp and content for an 87.25 year old. I stop in twice a day to empty the potty near the bed and help her with meals and cleaning, but she generally helps herself and reads and sleeps in front of the TV... her drugs seem to keep her stable and comfortable...Speaking of medicines, my bro in law is a primary care doc so I have seen what a totally convoluted, big business medical care has become...the street pushers have been replaced by the pharmaceutical companies and now a fear of illness and death and… REALITY… have consumed the American psyche and bankrupted the country…Instead of insisting on personal accountability the government is trying to Force healthy people-or anyone who still believes in personal choice-to purchase insurance to compensate for everyone else. Rather than infringing upon me without my consent,how about putting in some sort of tort control and limits on tests and individual payouts and other controls to reel in this madness...But I digress…Perhaps I’m the dreamer because I do Not Expect other people to pay for my care, and no one has asked me… it all starts with oneself…find a little faith and get off the couch and watch the donuts.
Anyway… the book is almost finished so you all will finally be able to dissect my head and where I have come from and decide for yourself whether I am delusional or visionary. Just don't expect a travelogue-you will be disappointed. Me? I do not lose sleep over any of this… far too trivial for daily worry… I simply expected better from humanity and know that we must be responsible for ourselves first…so stop all the blame and bickering and get to work. And maybe throw a few crumbs to the poor and the starving…No one really needs that third bathroom or thousandth nuclear bomb do they? (...sigh.. a Trillion dollars spent on WAR in the past decade and even now 1 in 5 kids in this country go hungry??? What the hell are we thinking??? What the hell are we doing???) ..and on and on we go

Old Age

My mother celebrated her 87th birthday on April 24th, and she remains mostly independent..That is, she still lives alone with daily visits by the rest of us, and continues to work at the office for a couple of hours most days. But it is clear to her and the rest of us that her capacity has severely deteriorated in the past year, so she walks very slowly and carefully with painful legs and hips and needs assistance putting her socks on. She told me last week that she hears continuous songs ( "America the Beautiful" and an old ballad from her youth in particular, with a male voice) in her head if there is silence, and her brain is such that normal speech is often too fast for her to fully comprehend-even if spoken loudly. In some ways she has regressed to childhood in her forgetfulness and sense of wonder at the most simple of things, yet her basic nature remains as sweet and empathetic as always. There is still emotional wisdom in her along with her lifelong concern for others. It seems as though her body and reasoning ability have diminished with age but not her core personality. She tells me that she is not afraid of dying although her reliance on medicines to sustain her life-the usual heart and water and pain pills-indicates that she still has hope of living for years. I guess she, like most people, has not really confronted death sufficiently to comprehend faith, and the expectant certainty of better things, so she holds on to dear life regardless of its quality. Things simply are not bad enough for her that she wants to go just yet, and in fact are comfortable enough that she accepts them. She has her TV and her family visits and her dark chocolate, and that fulfills her.
Me being me, I cannot help thinking that resources could be better spent on needy children than on people who have lived a good life to a ripe old age, and that there is an element of selfishness in the elderly who do not yield gracefully while consuming other peoples money-and make no mistake-health care in America is mostly other peoples money. Fortunately most of my mother's problems are minimal and she buys her own drugs, but if she were a comatose person in a wheel chair drooling in a nursing home, to keep her alive would be inhumane. I do not advocate heartlessness, only wish that people would not fear their own mortality so much, and that requires faith in something beyond medicine.