better homes and gardens

the item on the venture vermont challenge reads "Find and photograph 3 wild animal homes (10 pts)".

i guess it intends strict residences or nests or such, because these here frogs just live in the mud in this ditch.

do you see three frogs? the third one prefers not to be seen.









this is a beaver lodge on the east shore of preston pond. i live in an area with a lot of beavers.

this is a different beaver lodge in my neighborhood. the pond has no name, but the beavers created it.

beavers are kind of awesome that way.











this is a chipmunk hole. you can tell it's a chipmunk hole because if you watch it for more than a few minutes, you will see the chipmunk go in and out of it.

of course, it's not strictly his home, but one of the doors TO his home. or her home. i do not have a knack for sexing chipmunks.

presumably chipmunks know, and that's what matters.

this is where the chipmunk's hole is, so keep your trail mix locked up.














a pair of robins decided that my neighbor's satellite dish would be an awesome place to build a nest.

seriously, though. that place has all kinda shelter without being too cramped.













this of course, is not the full home, but one of the doors. ants live here.

bitey ants.












because of the size and shape of this nest hole, we can guess that PROBABLY it was made by a hairy woodpecker, but there's no telling what little hole-dwelling creature might use it now or in the future.

uncraft project

ok, so i wove part of a hammock. and then undid it and redid it. and then again. and again. and then i got finished weaving it the fourth time only i suspected it was not wide or long enough, but decided to finish it, just so i could learn how it works.

i'm calling it the protohammock.

it was comfortable, but not wide enough or long enough. surprise!

now i am unweaving it, and i am still using a netting needle made of cardboard and duct tape.

it feels very craftman-like, though.

dawn walk

i think i told you that last year for the venture challenge i made an attempt at this activity:

Get up at dawn and go on a bird walk. Attach a list of the birds you saw and heard (15 pts)

getting up at dawn was easy enough, but when i got out there i realized i didn't know enough about the birds to be able to identify any but the most obvious. it was a hard realization for me, since i used to know a lot of birds.

the only answer for it was to go out regularly, take notes, and hit the study guides.

and then instead of picking just one morning walk for the reporting, i had to try to ORGANIZE my data because why make a list when you could make a spreadsheet?
hmmmm?





or if you just want to look at it full size, here.

to know them by their songs

i used to know a lot of bird songs. in my life after memory impariment, it's harder for me to retain information. things i learned last week disappear. it's not just birdsong, it' s knots i learn, french verbs, people's names, anything i don't do every day.

there are two birding related items on this year's venture vermont challenge: "Learn the calls of three Vermont birds (10 pts)" and "Get up at dawn and go on a bird walk. Attach a list of the birds you saw and heard (15 pts)"

i tried to do this second one last year, but when i got out there at dawn i realized i had NO IDEA what birds i was hearing.

so this spring i got busy with a checklist of birds likely to be found in vermont and an online library of bird songs. i like this checklist because you can configure it for your state and your preferred listing, which is handy if you want the order of it to match your guide or what have you.

here is a good collection of bird song, which comes to us through the cornell lab of ornithology.

every day i try to listen to one grouping at least and try to match the songs with my local birds. i'm having pretty good luck.

for the challenge i have to claim three species that i have learned, and i have chosen three of my neighborhood endemics:

chipping sparrow
grey catbird
american redstart

flask's nature scavenger hunt 2016

hey, everybody! last year's venture vermont challenge had on it an item for which i had to make a nature scavenger hunt and get my friends to do it. it's not on the list this year, but one of my friends was excited to play and others of my friends are at least WILLING to play, so we're having another.

it don't cost you nothin' and there will be prizes for the winners, so if you like that sort of thing, please play.

the list looks very daunting (i'm told) but it is extremely flexible to people living in different biomes. if, for instance you don't live in an area with a lot of kinds of ferns but you have tons of lizards, you are in luck.

if you are playing, you don't have to get all the things in the categories, or even attempt all of the categories.

yes, there's a lot of emphasis on leaf morpholgy this year. wow. those are a lot of terms. the good news is that if you want to call it "egg-shaped" instead of "ovoid" i'm cool with that. the point is let's all go out there and look at some leaves and their wild diversity of structures!

my prereader had some questions, which i am passing on to you in case you have the same ones.



Q: so if I identify 10 pieces of limestone, that counts?
A: no. they don't use the word "species" for rocks as far as i can tell, but they should be different kinds of rocks.

Q: How closely do I have to ID the fungi? If I know it's amanita, do I have to know it's Amanita muscaria?
A: discretion of judge. if you need a microscope to make a positive ID, pretty close is good enough. so  something like "Amanita, probably A. muscaria" is just fine.

Q: Also, for the record, there's not any kind of botanical distinction between shrubs and trees.
A: yes, but some things are clearly not trees and yet not so much wildflowers, so consider it an extra ten points you can get.

Q: Do you have a preferred place for habitat descriptions?

A: i looked up every state of a person i anticipate might be playing and there is no uniform habitat classification, but every state has some sort of classification so i decided any established system is good enough for my purposes.

and you have the whole summer to do it. if you have children, you may wish to do a family entry.

so here it is:

downloadable copy

flask’s nature scavenger hunt 2016

Please provide photographic evidence and necessary text explanations that you have found as many of the following as you like. There are a lot of categories, intended to make the list flexible for people in different biomes.

Things you can identify specifically (e.g., spotted towhee, balsam fir, limestone):

• Rocks (one point each kind, maximum ten kinds)
• Grasses (one point each species, maximum ten)
• Ferns (one point each, maximum ten)
• Fungi (one point each, maximum ten)
• Lichen (one point each, maximum ten)
• Shrubs (one point each, maximum ten)
• Trees (one point each, maximum ten)
• Wildflowers/herbs (one point each, maximum ten)
• Mammals (one point each, maximum ten)
• Birds (one point each, maximum ten)
• Insects (one point each, maximum ten)
• Reptiles or Amphibians (one point each, maximum ten)
• Fish (one point each, maximum ten)
• Aquatic plants (one point each, maximum ten)
• Non-insect Arthropods (one point each, maximum ten)
• Non-insect, Non-arthropod Invertebrates (one point each, maximum ten)

At least TWO contrasting terrestrial or aquatic habitats (e.g., Palmetto Prairie, Eastern Boreal Floodplain, Temperate Hemlock Forest) (two points each, maximum ten)

BONUS: provide short documentation of classification system used and justification of your identification for an additional eight points each.

RANDOM STUFF:

• Animal scats (please identify species) (two points each, maximum ten)

BONUS: make observations about the animal’s health, habitat or diet based on the content. (eight points each)

• Owl pellet (five points, plus fifteen if you dissect it and identify content)
• Any wild growing edible plant (two points each, maximum ten)
• Eggs (please identify species. five points each, maximum ten)
• Any natural feature mentioned in a work of fiction that you have read (please identify the work and quote the passage) (five points each, maximum ten)
• Any geographical feature formed by erosion and/or sedimentation (five points each, maximum ten)

LEAVES!! (pay attention to the scoring in this section: photos in this section will be scored with multipliers. Your photo of a plant’s leaves is worth however many leaf classification terms it illustrates. If you can identify the plant in the photo with its species name, your score doubles. For scoring purposes, each term can only be used once, although words like “palmate” may be used in as many categories as it occurs. (e.g., palmate leaf shape is counted separate from palmate venation)

Leaves can be classified on the basis of petiole, arrangement, lamina, venation, and location. An ABBREVIATED LIST of examples will be used on this sheet, but you are welcome to use a more complex or complete listing if you want to go whole hog.  Wikipedia is a good starting point if you like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf#/media/File:Leaf_morphology.svg

• Leaves needle-like or scale-like
• Broad leaves
• Sessile / petiolate / grasping
• Leaf shape:  elliptic, ovate, oblong, palmate, cordate
• Leaf margin: entire, dentate, serrate, incised
• Leaf division: single, compound pinnate, compound palmate, decompound, bipinnate
• Leaf surface: rugose, hairy, glabrous, spiny
• Leaf apex: acute, obtuse, truncate
• Leaf base: rounded, cordate, sagittate
• Leaf arrangement: alternate, opposite, whorl
• Leaf venation: reticulate, parallel, pinnate, unicostate
• Leaf location: basal, cauline, ramal

You are not required to find every item (or even most of the items) in order to participate. Team entries are permitted. Take your time, do as much or little as you want, and by all means look stuff up. Prizes will be given for most points and any other categories flask deems necessary. Houseplants and housepets are not eligible to be identified for this challenge, no matter how exotic your household is. Submission deadline is 1 September 2016, and i’m assuming that if you have a copy of this list, you know how to send me your entry. Yes, you may make an album on googleplus or flickr or what-have-you, but if i have to log onto facebook, no dice.

woodpile

one of the items on the venture vermont challenge is  "Take a close look at a firewood pile and identify at least one species of wood in the pile (10 pts)" which can have a high degree of difficulty, depending on the woodpile, because identifying wood that's already cut is much more tricky than identifying trees.

...unless you have something like paper birch in you woodpile, in which case you don't have to look very hard.


i don't burn a lot of wood at home, so i'm blast if i remember what i had delivered fifteen years ago (yeah, i split a half cord with my next door neighbors and i can probably go two more years before i need more, unless we have a bad winter with a lot of power outages) so i went ahead an took a look at my woodpile.

i guess i could just guess, but i like to give these little projects due diligence.

so i found this handy website and i actually brought in some of my firewood to take a close look at the grain with a jeweler's loupe, just because.

here's my woodpile. on close inspection, it is mostly american beech (fagus grandifolia), which i have learned has too high a water content to be burned when first cut, but makes fine firewood when it is dried a season or two.

i have a few logs of white ash (fraxinus americana), and one or two pieces of white birch (betula papyrifera) besides. i also happen to know there are a few pieces of apple wood that i brought home for carving and may have been checked or otherwise poor carving and are now firewood. that's sort of a win, because apple burns with a sweet smell, and i probably won't burn it at home, but take it to camp for cooking.

telephone survey

this conversation happened at my house, just as i was going up to bed:

(phone ring)

me: hello?

guy: hello, is (my name) there?

me: this is. what can i do for you?

guy: well, my name is (name) and i represent (company). this is not a telemarketing call. we're making a confidential survey to find out how people such as yourself feel about important issues.

me: is the proper use of reflexive pronouns on your list?

guy: ah, well, i don't know, but how about we do the survey?

me: tell you what. when your call script uses reflexive pronouns properly, why don't you call me back?

(hangs up)

how are we doing?

yesterday morning i went into a campaign channel (the way i do every morning) and i said "anyone have any clue how we're going to do in USVI?"

and it struck me as a singular thing, because sometimes we watch sports teams and we say "we", as if WE did something to help the red sox win, or as if WE should have played a different quarterback and we confuse ourselves with the enterprise on the field.

we talk about "us" even though all we have done in this game or election is to watch and maybe post a few tweets and maybe, if we're conscientious, we MIGHT get up and vote.

but this time it's different.

Bernie Sanders keeps talking at his rallies (which by the way you mostly don't see on teevee, because the establishment media narrative is that there is not real campaign here)- anyway, he keeps talking about "us" and "we" at his rallies and he tells us it's about US and not about HIM, and we KNOW that to make him win or even to keep him in the race thousands upon thousands of us have to work hard, every day, to subvert the dominant paradigm and we know the dominant paradigm does not like being subverted.

nothing is more effective in getting out the word and getting out the vote than talking to people live.

doorknocking is actually the most effective, followed by phone calls. not robocalls. live callers who listen as well as speak.

but for all of those people to make calls or knock doors, there have to be data lists and from data lists come phone lists with accurate polling information. canvassers need lists of whose doors to knock, and maps of how to find those homes.

behind the ground forces is a small army of people who manage the lists, draw the maps, call the clerks to confirm the polling places, and even keep the phone numbers clicking through for the callers.

a lot of days we have more people than we need just cooling our heels because we know some days it's ALL HANDS ON DECK and a team might work twenty hours a day for a couple of days until the project is finished.

each and every one of us knows that if we do not do the work, it does not get done.

so for the first time in my life when i ask "how are we doing?" about a campaign, i am asking HOW ARE WE DOING? because i very much have a hand in it.

i'm not special that way, but i click those numbers through. i confirm those polling places. i make those maps for the canvassers. not just me. my team. my teams. we all pull. we all work.

calls get made. doors get knocked.

this is how we're doing it.

boys will be boys

yesterday i was driving a backroad and came around the corner to see two boys kissing.

high school age, out walking their dogs. stopped to kiss like normal people might on a pretty spring afternoon.

i was stunned.

when i was their age, boys would have been terrified to be seen kissing. and there they were. i waved. they went on walking their dogs.

it is a different world.

a better one.

cutting mustard

ok, right. so. i like mustard. we all do, right?

did you know it grow all over the place?

so last year i decided to harvest some mustard growing wild and make artisanal small batch mustard, just because. i spent hours picking the pods and shucking them, which yielded me about a third of a cup of seeds.

this week i finally got around to grinding some of them to powder and soaking the rest and running the whole thing though the mortar and pestle with some honey and vinegar so now i have a teeny little jar of nice handmade mustard.

and in case you wondered: here's a history of the phrase.

in which we master our fate

many anthropologists believe that the thing that enabled us as humans to develop the large brains that in part define us was that we discovered cooked food. to be certain, the ability to make fire increases our ability to adapt to a cold environment, to absorb nutrients, to expand our day.

if you're lost in the wilderness you need to be able to find food, shelter, and water. how quickly you need those things depends on what wilderness you are in.

if you are lost in a hot desert, YOU NEED TO FIND WATER FIRST. then shelter, then food.

if you are lost in a cool climate, you need SHELTER first, then water, then food.

you can survive much longer without food than you can without water, and if you cannot stay warm, you're done no matter how much food and water you have, and shelter without fire does you a limited amount of good when you're cold.

we take it for granted, fire. we turn it on with switches. we have matches, lighters, butane torches. but it's a difficult primitive skill, the making of fire.

the venture vermont challenge usually includes some firemaking activities on the list. i decided this year to try out vaseline soaked cotton balls (Make your own homemade fire starters) and to try them out with my new magnesium striker.

i used this guy's method, more or less. you can pack a bunch of them in a tin for easy carry.



once i had my little balls-o'-flammability prepared, i took one outside to test it with the striker, which i had never used.

















works a charm, even on the first try.








the trick is learning how to hold it.

refusal

if you read this on the blog page and not through your RSS feed, you may have noticed that i never did switch over to the winter colors here, because WINTER NEVER HAPPENED. sure, calendar winter came and went, but there was warm weather and precious little snow.

i simply refused to change off of my autumn colors until winter got here, which it never did.

so today i am skipping straight to the spring/ summer colors.

so, yay?

today there is little work for me in the sanders campaign, but a big was of it is supposed to come down the pipes this evening going straight into next week. if you want to make money placing bets on sanders to win states, put big money on montana and the dakotas while the odds are still long.

also california, but less of a sure thing and even longer odds. if you're brave, go ahead and bet. it's going to be exciting.

my entire life has not been on hold while i have been sandersing; i am still riding bikes and doing the venture challenge and i have projects and have taken pictures and stuff, but most days i use all of my available sitting at the computer time for the sandersing so i don't get to tell YOU anything.

this morning i have a little time to write, but yesterday i got wasp stung and thankfully it wasn't a hard hit and more thankfully it wasn't a species that sends me into a full reaction and even MORE thankfully i was just outside my front door, so i had benadryl in me and ice warpped around the arm in under two minutes.

today i still need the ice pack, but it's more for comfort than for slowing the reaction.

so we'll see.

worn out

i went camping friday with a girl scout troop.

last winter the leader called me up and asked me if i could help them with a letterboxing merit badge, and of course i could.

i was going to tell you more about that, but  wow, i am tired.

super fun though.

maybe i will have a nap.

a story from last fall

i probably meant to tell you this back then. probably.

i'm thinking about it today because i'm gonna stop at the same gas station and buy gas on my way out of town to go camping with a girl scout troop.

so this one day i sorta needed a tank of gas, but i REALLY needed a little USB cord, and the gas station had both, so i went there.

but it turns out they can't do that as once transaction. you have to go out, pump the gas, pay for that, and THEN buy the other thing, which was too much trouble for me and i could buy a tank of gas at the place where i was going to buy ice later in the day.

so basically this conversation happened:



me: can i get a tank of gas and this USB cord on one transaction?

clerk: no. you have to do the two separate transactions. you have to pay for the gas out at the pump.

me: ok, then. i'll just have this USB cord.




that's kind of a business loss.

i almost forget how to do this.

i'm still working on the sanders campaign, sometimes ten or twelve hours a day.

and i am still managing to do the laundry and the dishes and work on some projects, so there isn't a lot of time to write.

the 2016 venture vermont challenge has started, so i'm working on that. as part of that or adjunct to that, i am learning to juggle, trying to learn to identify more bird species, making a netting needle, carving a spoon, working on some firestarter, and weaving a hammock.

i am also trying to keep up with studying french because i used to be able to speak it.

so this is a start, at least, writing this much for you.

and because if you are like me and really twelve years old at heart, here is a random picture from easter at my mom's house.

this conversation happened.

i'm likely to do things in my sleep. this was a problem before ambien came into my life.

mb and i usually text at bedtime, because goodnight. it's a sweet little ritual.

MB: are you in bed?
ME: are you calling me fucked up?
MB: what?

the perfectly logical explanation is that i had been having a dream in which she was texting me to compare me with some lady in new mexico, whom she called fucked up.

i'm a real prize.

still here

hello, my friends.

i am still here. i spend a lot of time typing and stuff, which is what mb is now calling "sandersing".

it is so cool, and the thing that kills me is that i can't tell you most of it. wow, we have cool tools.

some are custom-made, but some are right off the shelf. the bottom line is that thousands and thousands of us can organize our efforts and keep each other company.

here's an article.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3058681/inside-bernie-sanders-social-media-machine

and the campaign guy is right. we do have good tools and we are tech savvy. we are also true believers. we have passion and we have love.

foreclosure relief mobile command center

yesterday i went door-to-door canvassing for senator sanders in plattsburgh, NY.

we say this vehicle outside of city hall.

it is a

NEW YORK STATE
DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL SERVICES
FORECLOSURE RELIEF UNIT
MOBILE COMMAND CENTER

the simple fact that such a vehicle exists is proof that our economy has so much failed us. our government has sold us out to banks and left us out to dry.

we need better. we deserve better.

open letter to the registrars of ridgefield, CT

hey, hi.

it's not important whose campaign i'm volunteering for.  my task today (and some other days) is to comb websites and talk to town clerks and registrars to verify current polling places.

i've seen a lot of town and county websites these days.

you guys win my prize for today. out of the dozens of connecticut towns i looked up today, you have the clearest and most accessible information about state voting laws and requirements, and the best and clearest information about how to locally access the necessary forms.

in some towns they seem to treat elections like a secret club.

i believe in good governance, and in free and fair elections, with information for all people who wish to exercise their franchise whether they are established voters, new to town or new to voting.

it's important not just at a local level, but as part of our national integrity.

so thanks. i'm just one middle aged lady from another state, but i appreciate your website and your work.

i hope voting in your town goes smoothly. may you have high turnout and few challenges, full ballot boxes, short voting lines, and sound sleep.

all best.

(my name)

west bolton, vermont

secretary clinton and effective leadership.

if you support secretary clinton because you like wall street banks, or because you like the TPP, or the keystone XL pipeline, or you really, really like wall street banks, fine. you like this candidate.

but if you are spouting the nonsense that she is the only democratic candidate who gets things done, let’s look at her actual record, shall we? i think this is important because the clinton campaign makes it a point to say that senator sanders will be ineffective and that secretary clinton is the only one of the two of them who can DO THE WORK.

so, on sponsored bills that passed, we have clinton: S.3145, S.3163, and S.1241. that’s a renamed highway, a renamed post office, and the establishment of a historic site.

sanders has also sponsored three bills that were made law, H.R.4255,  S.855, andS.893. that’s two renamed post offices and the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2013.

we could maybe also look at the number of bills that each candidate ushered through committees to become law, or the number of amendments to bills that each one passed. clinton was never chair of any committees so maybe she MIGHT have helped bills get through there if she’d had enough experience, but when she makes herself out to be the only one with experience and ability to get things passed, sanders leads there, too.

clinton: 74       sanders: 203

you can talk all you want about how ineffective sanders will be, but maybe you should check out his record.

remember: just because hillary says it doesn’t make it true.