Connecting the Dots

Thoughts on Developmental Editing

2012-03-07T08:25:00.000-08:00

As you might have noted from the header across the top of this blog, I am myself an editor. So take the following with a grain of salt.

Over the last few months, I have read a fairly incredible number of ebooks. This is normal. Probably 50% of that material is fiction and comes from self-published authors. The other 50% is all content development, because that's the kind of writing and editing I do for a living. Whenever my brain can't hold any more factoids about information architecture and metadata - and the other day I even read up on taxonomy, although I absolutely don't need to because I never intend to go near the stuff - I switch gears to fiction. Mostly to stay sane.

Why read self-published authors? Well, it started because (a) I was curious, and (b) self-published fiction tends to be cheap (content development books are not). I kept reading because I started noticing patterns and then I couldn't stop until I felt I had a large enough data sample to analyze said patterns and draw some conclusions.

I drew several. Only one seems likely to be of interest, though, to people who might happen across this blog.

Here it is: Self-published authors, please consider working with developmental editors as well as with copyeditors and proofreaders.

My own developmental editing experience is limited to nonfiction projects and content development. I have zero qualifications to offer developmental edits in fiction. (Regrettably, because it looks like fun.)

Still. After reading a few jillion self-published books, a very clear pattern has emerged: Yes, many of these books are quite good. Exceptionally good, if you consider that they often have been produced without extensive creative and experienced support systems. There is also often an underlying joy and energy to the writing that you don't tend to find in other areas of publishing.

However, many of the self-published books I have read (and enjoyed) could also be a lot better, both technically and in terms of story.* My sense is that they just didn't have the right person - the right partner, the right editor - pushing the writer to stretch themselves, challenge themselves, that necessary bit more.

An editor should be much more than someone who just checks your grammar. Someone who takes a deeper look at your work tunes into it like a piece of music. They hear the unevenness and discord, the background noises, that distract from the overall impact.

For example, your action might be well developed but your characters much less so - or, your characters might be quite mature and complex but your plot really struggles. Your voice may ring so purely, so clearly, that any off notes stand out like a sore thumb. You may have a giant problem in Act II. You may have redundant scenes, characters, and interactions that drag down the book. Etc.

You can have reading groups go over your work from now until doomsday, but most of them are unlikely to give you the overall perspective and feedback you can receive from an experienced, professional editor who has the capacity to help you develop your work to its fullest potential.

I say this from experience, because I work with other editors on my own projects. The longer I continue in my career as a writer, the more and more I value good editors - the ones who will take a deeper look, wrestle a bit, and push me to do better work.

Finding the right editor is not always easy. There are definitely some jerks out there (as there are in all fields). Especially when you are just starting out, the jerks can be hard to filter. Finding the right fit between your material and the editor's expertise can also be tough.

However, it's also tough finding a good doctor, counselor, or dentist. Or the right significant other. Etc. Blah blah.

I hope I'm making my point. Think of it this way - if you were training for the Olympics, you would want to have a good coach, right?

That's perhaps the best way to understand the value of a talented developmental editor.

* Could many of the traditionally published books I read also be better? Of course. However, that percentage seems to be lower than in self-publishing. And are the strengths of published books all due to their editors? No, not necessarily.

Pigs are flying (and they taste pretty good, too)

2012-02-10T08:22:00.000-08:00

That is apparently the theme for 2012. And whoops, was there a blog here...? Sorry. The year kicked off with a wonderful bang and this is literally the first moment I've had to ... write. For myself. Not for other people. The thing is, I like it either way.

Updates:

TimeMaster. Pretty much the coolest, most used app on my tablet. If you bill hourly at all ever, it's a must have. Even if you mostly submit project bids, you also need this app to make sure you are tracking your hours and bidding correctly.
Women in combat? Er, duh. The least the Pentagon can do is admit it and provide appropriate training. (Don't read the comments to that story, it'll break your heart.) Instead check out this PBS blog post from the makers of this documentary - Lioness.
I now have a four wheeler! And a snowplow blade! Just in time for global warming!
We finally picked up our pork order from our CSA. Minus the beets, I think this is what is for dinner tonight - roast pork tenderloin. From a very cute pig that I got to meet and pet and feed - and then leave, because, I am not a big fan of pigs. Eat them, yes. Raise them, no. Although they don't smell bad at all if you don't keep them penned up.

Funny story: Readers (if I still have any) may well recall the horrid anti-princess bias of this blog. At any rate, Toddler still was not clear on the entire concept of princesses...

... Until a little boy in her playgroup enlightened her. Let's call him Jonah. Jonah LOVES princesses. Jonah wears princess dresses. Jonah also paints his fingernails and toenails. Jonah also likes guns and lightsabers and karate.

Am I painting a picture here?

So, when it comes to Jonah, Toddler is allowed to play princess. Or prince. Jonah is not particularly clear on that point. Neither is Toddler, so I figure oh well!

Alright. Back to the grindstone.

What do I really do all day?

2011-12-29T12:49:00.001-08:00

The holidays brought with it wonderful talks with family and friends - and of course, squeezed in there was a fair sampling of the same question I always get. It pretty much boils down to:

"Maril, what do you actually DO all day?"

I must be rotten at elevator pitches, because my answers don't ever seem to satisfy. Short answer: "I'm a writer. I work on proposals, websites, ad copy, press releases, research documents, you name it. I also do a lot of editing."

There is usually a blank stare. Then they ask, "For who?"

Me, feeling kind of helpless: "Well, anyone and everyone. Businesses, nonprofits, um..."

OK. Here is what I do. I am like a super fun and cool tool, that once you pick me up and figure out how to use me, you usually don't want to put me down.

Today, for example, I worked on a research brief about big data, I drafted web copy for a specialist website that is going to reach everyday users (yes, this is possible), I worked on a communications plan, I edited someone's blog entry, and I ... let me check my log... oh yeah, I gave feedback on someone's information architecture for a website revision. And in my own head, while I was doing all this, I deconstructed the pitches for two websites I find really, really interesting. Just to figure out what makes them tick. Now I'm also reviewing a legal document where someone wants a non-legal but still fairly expert eye to go over it. These are all different clients, BTW.

Yep. This is all writing. Audience analysis, understanding various format requirements, planning content, drafting content, editing content, promoting content - and helping other people do all of this, in whatever way they need me. I do a bit more than content, actually. My specialty seems to be adding substance.

Oh yes, I also sent out two interview requests for a magazine story. Sometimes I write those, too, if I either (a) like the editor, and/or (b) really like the people I get to interview.

Being a writer these days - it's about the coolest thing I can imagine. My clients are all over the map, so are their formats, and that's how I like it.

Dear family, and dear friends... This is what I do all day!

The Kitchen Tablet App I REALLY need

2011-12-28T07:55:00.000-08:00

This post is born of immense frustration. Ie, in the edits, I had to go back and remove far too many instances of the word "freaking."

I have tried many grocery/ housekeeping apps. Not to name names, but none of them work. Some of the problems lie in the device and some lie in the app.

So here is what I want. Someone develop it, please. And then let me know.

I want an indestructible tablet - like the kind my husband uses in the field as a paramedic - that will insert into my refrigerator door (and it can recharge there), and hold a SIMPLE, DECENT housekeeping/ grocery app, plus whatever recipe apps I choose.

Nothing fancy, I don't want kids sneaking this tablet out of the fridge door and playing games.
If the fridge manufacturer supplies the tablet, I do NOT want any backdoors where they download all my data and sell it to food manufacturers.
The tablet should be mounted at a height where small kids with sticky fingers can't reach it, but where adults and older kids can... wait, correction, the tablet should be mounted so an adult the size of the average female can use it. Hint: I'm 5'4". My husband is 6 foot plus. He will not be the main user of this app, so if you are a tall male refrigerator designer, do not screw this up. If you tilt the tablet at an angle, the tall guys can still see the screen. I would not mount it flush.
It needs wireless capability, and I need to be able to print my grocery list. Ideally if the printer could be mounted in the door, too, that would be great. I don't need more junk on my kitchen counters. If the printer can only use specialty paper or ink cartridges, I will be mad.
I want the main grocery/ housekeeping app to be a customizable template with at least four tabs. My tabs would read: Grocery, Errands, Chores, Big Stuff (aka, what my husband needs to do on the house). Probably there should also be a screensaver for Reminders (like, change kitty litter!!!).
The grocery list part is the giant PITA that no developer ever gets right. I want to build my own, simple, master list of all the things I ever buy at the grocery store, then I just select them to go on my weekly shopping list. I want to be able to search the freaking list. Those giant databases that stores provide of all their products - I HATE THOSE. Hate them! Hate them hate them!
Coupons - I hate those, too. Don't make me mad by inserting coupons into my damn list, or I will remember, and I will NOT BUY YOUR PRODUCT. Put coupons into a separate damn tab (maybe I should have gone back and edited out the "damns," too).
Oh yes, I want another tab, too - Recipe Box. I want the ability to email all my favorite recipes from Epicurious, Taste of Home, whatever, TO THIS APP. I do not want them to look funky when I do so.
Special features: Inventory and Calendar. Oh so often when I go to the grocery store, I need to know what I actually have at home in freezer and pantry. I want my Grocery List to integrate with and update my Inventory (which I could keep in a companion app on my phone. Seriously). Will I ever actually have time to inventory my entire pantry, much less update it whenever I use up an item? Hell no. Will I buy an app with the feature? Hell yes. And if Grocery List integrates well, then it is at least a place to start.
Oops, forgot Calendar. That's obvious, I need to be able to sync with my calendar(s). Will my family actually check the calendar feature? Nope. But I will. Alerts would also be nice.
A deluxe version could include voice recognition - or even a stylus. Ooooo, stylus. There's definite potential there.
The fridge better be EnergyStar.

Could I go further on the app information architecture/ design/ usability? Sure. Could I come up with a great name? Of course! But I have a day job... and I have a kitchen, I have a family, and I have a life...

WHICH IS WHY I NEED THIS APP.

(Thank you all for humoring my rant.)

BTW, I think I probably now have copyright to this idea but I know I&P lawyers and I am happy to license it. Officially, (c) Maril Hazlett, 2011.

Writing - Sometimes it might just take a cliche

2011-12-20T07:52:00.000-08:00

Cliches: Use them, or eschew them?

I've had close to the same ~~argument~~ discussion with three different people over the past week. On the whole, in many types of writing, I would have to agree - you should avoid cliches like the plague (ha ha).

However. When it comes to cliches, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater (I'm going to stop inserting "ha ha, " BTW). There are moments when only a cliche will do, and here's why.

Cliches form the tip of a very important iceberg - that giant submerged mass of our consciousness known as social norms. Norms are very closely related to narratives, and both (I'm convinced) have shaped deep ruts in our brains. When you hit certain buttons, people react. They are neurochemically wired that way. They can't help it. They might backpedal afterwards, but if you are able to provoke a reaction, your message will stick in their mind. One way or another.

In the right situation, if deployed with care, a cliche is just such a button.

If you are involved in communications at all, of any kind (and writers, if you don't think you need to learn more about communications, you need to think again), why in the world would you not learn all about every single button you could lay your hands on? Why would you not keep this tool on hand?

More on cliches, norms, and narratives. Basically, these are all forms of the known. These are the rules. Rules work in many ways as well. Rules are safety - and rules are confinement. People want to cling to them and escape them all at the same time. Sometimes, a cliche is like spoonful of sugar. It acts as reassurance, as safety. This makes the medicine of breaking loose go down a little easier.

If you want to break down conventions, or what you see as social bad habits (and for me, that is clearly how humans tend to treat their environment), then you better embrace them first. Use the known to build a bridge to the unknown, to the uncertain, or even to mystery. Got risk? Pad it gently with norms, and see what happens. If you understand convention, that may well endear you to hostile audiences who don't want to hear you at all.

Once in a while, use a damn cliche!

I actually convinced one person to try this. She came back to me with wide eyes.

"How'd it go?" I asked.

"Holy crap!!" she said. "I can't believe it worked!"

I rest my case. Try it. See.

Counting Blessings - Merry Christmas

2011-12-19T14:45:00.000-08:00

And Happy Hanukah to my friends Jessica and Jasonne, and Happy Kwanzaa to Adwoa, too. And to anyone and everyone else, I wish you all the greetings of the season.

So sorry about the lack of blog entries lately. It means I have given myself a Christmas present of oh, a few thousand Google alerts to read through on environment and conservation issues. At some point.


I'm grateful Toddler knows how to drive the truck and wood trailer. (What?)

'Tis the season to reflect - and if there's no time for that, then it is simply the season to be grateful.

I've been trying to explain to Toddler the connection between Jesus's birthday and Santa Claus, and really, there is not much of one. So we picked. She does know about Santa Claus, but he's not a big focus for us (other than that she asked him for a tractor, and she's getting one).

Instead, the highlight of Toddler's Christmas season is the Advent calendar on the wall. Every night she knows she's getting one step closer to finding baby Jesus on Day 24. When she got to Mary, I thought she might pass out - but come to think of it, she was equally excited about the camel.

At any rate, we use the whole concept of gifts as a time to talk with our daughter about how Christmas is a time to help out people who need it. Everyone is lucky in their own way, whether they realize it or not, but not everyone has access to food, shelter, care, and love. The highlight of my Christmas season so far has been the opportunity to join with a group of friends and adopt a family. I'm very grateful to have friends with the organizational skills to pull that off, because there was no way I was going to be able to participate otherwise. It's been a crazy year.

I have so many blessings, I can't even start to count them all. Family. Friends. A house that has not yet fallen down, vehicles that pretty much run, food on the table for every meal (if someone goes shopping), health insurance, and pets whose vet bills are not yet too high. I count my blessings every time Husband walks back in the door after a long, tough shift - and he's worked on three major household fires already this holiday season. Imagine how those people feel, with their homes destroyed.

As far as professional life goes, I am grateful for all the work (even though it killed my blog - oh well!), I am grateful to have such sharp clients with fascinating projects that allow me to bounce all over the mental map, and I am very grateful that having a baby, going back freelance, and cutting down my schedule did not put me into early retirement. I will be even more grateful if I can finish the communications tips book in the next couple of months (because people really don't need to pay me by the billable hour to answer some of these questions - over and over), but if it doesn't happen, again, I'll figure something out.

I'm grateful for resilience, and toughness, and all the love in the world.

Merry Christmas!

Open Letter from Don Hazlett to Senator Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, on Raising Taxes

2011-11-29T08:49:00.001-08:00

We hereby take a break from our regularly scheduled programming for a special feature - a letter from my Dad (a lifelong Republican) to his Senator, Pat Roberts. Who, I am pretty sure, is also a lifelong Republican.

Dad sent the letter last week and then shared it with his kids. He gave me permission to post. The pledge Dad refers to in his letter is the one circulated by Grover Norquist.

Dad is a lawyer, banker, entrepreneur, and intrepid cowboy. This is the first letter he has ever written to an elected representative.

Dear Pat,

As you know, I am a lifetime Republican as Harold can confirm, originally from Sterling and Topeka, now in Lawrence, and have supported you each time you have run to represent we Kansans.

Last week, I was put in a state of shock when I learned that you were one of the Senators who had signed a commitment with an out of state organization, headed by what appears to be radical individual, that you would never vote to raise taxes.

Pat, I do not want taxes raised either…BUT…if the survival of my country depends on making some hard decisions, and one of them is to raise taxes, I want you, Pat Roberts, my elected representative, open to consider that for the good of the country, and for the Kansans he represents, taxes should be raised, he can and will vote to raise them!! Pat, I and the people of Kansas sent you to Washington to represent us and make good decisions, whatever they may be.

By you promising that organization and person that you will not, under any circumstances raise taxes, or even consider raising them, you have given away your ability to properly represent us! At the present time, our government is approaching a state of being non-functional, as has been illustrated several times in the last two years. One of the reasons is that special interest groups such as the one I reference above, is being able to control a duly elected Congress.

Haven’t you forfeited your right to make your own decision when you signed the pledge to this individual and organization not to raise taxes? I will even go a bit further along this path…it is my understanding that the quid quo pro is that they in turn will not run anyone against you. Pat, if that isn’t selling your vote or caving in to extortion, I don’t know what it is.

Please explain to me where my analysis is incorrect. Is there something here I have misunderstood? Pat, you need to have more faith in the people of Kansas in making the judgment on how well you represent us. You will be surprised that they appreciate a Senator that thinks for himself, represents Kansans, and is willing to make the hard decision.

Pat, in closing, I respectfully ask that you renounce the pledge that you made to this organization.

Sincerely,

Don Hazlett

(Emphases in original.)

Climate and Cooking - Pumpkin (and Pyrethroid) Coffee Cake, Yum!

2011-11-21T07:20:00.000-08:00

Speaking as a home gardener, squash bugs are a pox and a pain and they are everywhere in North America. Sadly, squash bugs especially love pumpkins.

This year's haul from pumpkin patch.

Ah, the Great Pumpkin! If anything happens to you, how will Cinderella get to the ball? And what about the jack-o-lantern, the bright orange Halloween symbol that all little kids so adore? Not to mention Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, that fragrant dessert that embodies the American dream of plenty.

Climate change plus pumpkins... Some good questions here. How will climate change potentially affect squash bugs, and thus pumpkin crops? Will squash bugs enjoy warmer average temperatures, and if so, will that lead to increased pesticide applications? How might that affect the supply of pumpkins? How long will it be economical for us to visit the local pumpkin patch every fall and fill wheelbarrows with this nutritious and symbolic vegetable?

Before you read my speculations, first get started on this recipe. I don't always care for pumpkin myself, but this coffee cake is quite delicious. Pumpkin-doubters, you will like it. Pumpkin lovers, go bake a pie in order to get your pumpkin immersion experience.

PUMPKIN COFFEE CAKE
I was lucky to get a picture before the coffeecake disappeared.
(original recipe here, I altered ingredients and edited directions*)

Ingredients

TOPPING: (This makes too much, in my opinion. Save what you don't use in fridge to sprinkle over baked apples for dessert sometime.)

1/4 cup packed brown sugar (use more)
1/4 cup sugar (use less)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 generous tablespoons cold butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

CAKE:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar (I used 1/2 cup brown sugar plus 1/4 cup refined)
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream (I used 1/2 c. sour cream and 1/2 cup lowfat vanilla yogurt)
1/2 cup pumpkin (canned, or cooked and mashed fresh pumpkin)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, whatever sounds good
pinch teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour two 8-inch round baking pans... or, if you are like me, cuss when reading that instruction because you don't own any pan in that weird dimension, let alone two of them, why would you? I substituted a 9x9 square pan plus a funky little casserole dish and the Earth did not once waver in its orbit. Warning: The cake DOES rise high, so when you get to that step, do not overfill.

Make topping first: In a small bowl, combine sugars and cinnamon. Use two table knives or a pastry cutter to "cut" in the cold butter until the mixtures looks like very delicious crumbs. Stir in the nuts. Refrigerate topping mixture while you make the cake.

Cake: In mixer or by hand, cream together softened butter and sugar. Add eggs one a time, beating well after each addition. In separate bowl, combine sour cream, pumpkin, and vanilla, mix well. In another separate bowl, combine dry ingredients. Alternately add dry ingredients and sour cream mixture to creamed mixture in original mixing bowl. Beat on low until just barely blended.

Spread the batter into the two greased and floured pans (of your choice). Reminder: Do not overfill. Sprinkle both pans with the topping. Bake both pans together in the oven at 325 degrees for 40-50 minutes and, as always, when testing doneness please use your good judgement and observation skills. Toothpick should come out clean.

* The original recipe editor was totally asleep at the wheel, and/or had never actually tried to follow the recipe instructions.

Cake done? Mouth full? Back to squash bugs.

Squash bug nymphs. Credit: CSU Extension.

No, wait, let's talk about pumpkins first. Pumpkins probably originated in North America, most likely in Mexico, but they now grow on every continent except for Antarctica. Pumpkins are packed full of carotenoids and are very good for you, which is why I persist in eating them, argh.

According to the 2007 U.S. Agricultural Census, the pumpkin processing crop is not a huge moneymaker for Kansas - 135 farms harvested only about 1,008 acres - but my guess is that most of these pumpkin acres were indeed ag tourism-related, ie, the pumpkin patch. That economic impact was not accounted for in the census. Illinois grows and processes a whopping 95% of the pumpkins for the U.S. market.

Which likely means that Illinois also has one heck of a lot of squash bugs. Those little suckers (literally, they suck the sap from the leaves, causing the leaf to wilt, and the plant often dies and/or becomes diseased) hide under the leaves, are hard to see, and if you don't kill them in the nymph stage, you're pretty much screwed. Squash bugs will delight in overwintering in your garden or field. Long hard freezes are your friend, and in fact your best hope for controlling these pests.

Oh yeah, climate change... You see where this is going.

Let's review the general impact of climate change on insects: According to the Agriculture chapter (.pdf) in the U.S. Global Change report (2009), climate change and warming average temperatures will work out pretty well for most bugs:

Many insect pests and crop diseases thrive due to warming, increasing losses and necessitating greater pesticide use. Warming aids insects and diseases in several ways. Rising temperatures allow both insects and pathogens to expand their ranges northward. In addition, rapidly rising winter temperatures allow more insects to survive over the winter, whereas cold winters once controlled their populations.

Some of these insects, in addition to directly damaging crops, also carry diseases that harm crops. Crop diseases in general are likely to increase as earlier springs and warmer winters allow proliferation and higher survival rates of disease pathogens and parasites. The longer growing season will allow some insects to produce more generations in a single season, greatly increasing their populations.

Finally, plants grown in higher carbon dioxide conditions tend to be less nutritious, so insects must eat more to meet their protein requirements, causing greater destruction to crops.

Sounds like fun... for the insects.

Even today, when global warming scenarios are only starting to kick in, if you can effectively control squash bugs on a commercial scale without pesticides then it's news to me. Sure, there are integrated pest management options: plant bug-resistant pumpkin varieties, keep excess foliage in the patch to a minimum, rotate crops, etc. However, you are probably still going to have to apply some sort of pest control, most likely a pyrethrin or its synthetic counterpart, a pyrethroid.

So what are the potential impacts of climate change on commercial pumpkin crops? It seems logical that more bugs (if that happens, this is just me speculating, but it seems logical) will mean more pesticides. More pyrethroids on your pumpkin. However, using more pesticides usually tends to to result in more pesticide-resistant bugs, and squash bugs are becoming resistant to pesticides already.

Also, while pyrethroids are by no means the yuckiest of the pesticides, they are indeed very toxic to aquatic organisms. If you are growing pumpkins in a field or garden that suffers a lot of sediment run-off - aka, erosion - then the pyrethroid will very likely end up in nearby water bodies. (Sorry, fish and other aquatic life, but I really wanted that nice big orange pumpkin.)

I just heard my organic gardening friends gasp.

No. Don't leap to the conclusion that more pesticides on pumpkins will necessarily mean more dangers to consumers, too. Since effective pesticide applications have to be made so early in the pumpkin growing season in order to catch the squash bug nymphs, pesticide residues on pumpkins are not usually a big problem. Pumpkins were once on the Environmental Working Group's infamous "Dirty Dozen" list but have since been removed.

Overwhelmed? Eat some coffeecake, that's why it's there. Don't stop reading.

Also, remember that pests aren't the whole picture. Climate change could also have other impacts on pumpkins. Higher nighttime temperatures, less water availability and efficiency (meaning the plant is less able to effectively make use of the water it does have), uncertainty over planting dates as seasons and cycles shift, etc. These factors and others could all have an impact on yields.

Have another bite, and I will tell you what all this means for you, and the future of pumpkin in your life. For now, I won't explain the ecosystem/ pesticide bit about troubles with dead fish and an aquatic food chain with gaping holes. (We'll just sum up that part as "not good.")

Pumpkin. So easy to freeze your own.

We don't know exactly what will happen when climate change meets pumpkins, but it's a good guess that the result will likely mean more expensive pumpkins. Some sort of pumpkin shortage is likely to occur in certain areas. Of course, some locations that couldn't grow pumpkins at commercial scale before might be able to in the future, too.

If it is economic to do so.

Even if new growers find themselves able to grow pumpkins - will they want to? Will the crop be profitable? Or will growing pumpkins cost them too much money in time, management, and inputs like pesticides?

I don't have any answers here. I'm just guessing. My usual prediction is that climate change will mean the slow yet inevitable disappearance of certain foods from our diet due to high costs and unavailability. Possibly losing chocolate and coffee is one thing. People might have gone crazy from losing those in their diet, but I don't think anyone ever suffered a major nutritional deficiency as a result. However, losing something as healthy as a pumpkin, a foodstuff indigenous to the New World that almost anyone can grow almost anywhere - that's another issue entirely.

So what do you do? Is the pumpkin doomed?

Again, unknown. However, here's what I think I will do. While it really sucks, you can in fact control squash bugs much easier in your small vegetable garden than can a commercial pumpkin farmer in a big field. Just get out there, inspect the plants, and physically kill the damn bugs. Yes, I'm serious. I recommend you use gloves, and get out there early in the season because destroying the eggs is a lot easier than killing the adults. The adults crunch. It's gross.

Such as it is, that's my plan. I will attempt to grow more of my own pumpkins, hope it works, squash the eggs, and hopefully, come fall, I will at least have a few pumpkins to show for it. Then if my local pumpkin patch has a bad year (or if I can't afford to shop there anymore), I have back-up in the freezer and I won't have to buy the expensive canned pumpkin to make my coffeecake.

How to freeze pumpkin flesh? So easy. Take off the top, scoop out the seeds, chop up the pumpkin into slices, then bake it or throw it in the crockpot, whatever. After it's cooked, scoop out the cooked flesh, smash it up, and freeze it. If you are very domestic and have no fear of pressure cookers, you could even can the pumpkin. Really. I probably won't, but you can.

Or, you can always bake the pumpkin into a delicious coffeecake.

DIGEST: Kansas Conservation and Environment News, 11/17/2011

2011-11-17T18:49:00.001-08:00

November has been insane. I see no signs of slowdown until.... until Christmas? Oh man.

Water

Five sand and gravel companies are seeking to increase dredging by almost 50% on the Kansas River, a jump from 2.2 million tons to 3.2 million tons. The Army Corps of Engineers is accepting public comment on this proposal through December 9, 2011. You can email your public comment to kale.e.horton@usace.army.mil. For more information on dredging plus a sample public comment, click here.
Is it just me, or are the politics of flooding getting even more interesting, convoluted, and problematic? And I pay attention to the Missouri River, because what happens there inevitably will affect flood management on the Kaw. Climate change will probably make this all even more fun.
Recent drought in western Kansas has meant increased withdrawals from the Ogallala Aquifer. Story from Harvest Media.

Nitrogen and Cattle

Speaking of drought, ranchers are being warned to keep a close eye on their cattle - drought-stressed plants and forage are containing very high levels of nitrates, which poison the animals by impairing the blood's ability to transport oxygen. Quote: "The application of large amounts of nitrogen-rich fertilizers only exasperates the situation."

Climate Change

"Adapting to a Changing Climate" will be the theme of the Kansas Association of Conservation Districts (KACD) annual meeting this weekend (November 20-22) in Wichita. Looks like EPA Region 7 Administrator Karl Brooks will be one of the speakers. Also looks like a neat talk on sedimentation in Kansas reservoirs. (Program available here, .pdf.)
Some more on the ongoing carbon soil sequestration research at K-State. Cool.
Nebraska put a hitch in the get-along of the TransCanada oil sands Keystone XL pipeline that was also planned to go through Kansas. The pipeline is now being re-sited around Nebraska's environmentally sensitive Sand Hills and high water tables in the Ogallala Aquifer. (What's that, the pipeline was going through the Ogallala and other sensitive environmental areas in Kansas, too...? Who knew.)

Air Quality

Tragic, tragic story from Chanute, Kansas, regarding the human health impacts of mercury emissions and other air quality issues with the Ash Grove cement kiln. (Thanks to Joe Ryan for the link.)

The EPA says the toxin levels are within accepted levels. However, some of the citizens of Chanute are raising questions. Quote: "We're not really tree-hugging liberals. But when your environment becomes damaged or you feel that you're being contaminated—I don't care what party you're in—this is your human life."

Renewables

Federal agencies (EPA and DOE) are considering another brownfield - the old Farmland fertilizer plant in Lawrence - for potential renewable energy production.
K-State researchers are looking at using Conservation Reserve Program lands for cellulosic biofuels production. On one hand, good idea not to put these lands back in row crops (erosion, erosion, erosion). On the other hand... not a good idea to slosh nitrogen all over them, either, especially given the unclear and worrisome role of the nitrogen cycle in climate change.

Food

I complain about food prices a lot - and data from the annual Farm Bureau Federation survey of Thanksgiving dinner prices reinforces that, yup, price hikes are a problem: The retail cost of a basic Thanksgiving menu has increased about 13 percent this year.
Related (somehow): Rural land prices are up 25% this year in the Midwest. But don't worry, it's not a bubble. Housing wasn't either, if I recall. Nor was the internet. (Just saying.)

What I Want For Christmas

A $6.75 MailStop envelope from Catalog Choice. Just take all those dumb holiday catalogs, stick them in the envelope, send it back to Catalog Choice, and Catalog Choice will remove you from those mailing lists. YAY. You can also set up an account and do this yourself manually, year-round, on the main Catalog Choice site. A nice sustainable thing to do.

Darwin Award

I know this isn't conservation-related... but, copper thieves in rural areas, power lines, pick-up trucks. Um. Dudes. Don't do that. (The comments on the article will also make you kind of want to shoot yourself - instead of shooting whatever nut is out in front of your house, hooking up his bumper to your distribution line.)

In other news, as we all know, it's hunting season. Wear bright colors if you go hiking in the woods. Or, hey, wait on that for a while.

DIGEST: Kansas Conservation and Environment News, 11/7/2011

2011-11-07T08:12:00.000-08:00

The big news appears to be that on Saturday night, Kansas felt the ripple effects from an 5.6 magnitude Oklahoma earthquake. I slept through the event, and only learned about it Sunday from (1) all the neighbors who did NOT sleep through it, and (2) someone texting me a fracking joke (BTW, that link takes you to an earlier USGS report on fracking and fifty earlier Oklahoma earthquakes. I haven't read it yet myself.)

The Digest is a new thing for the blog. I will post it when I can, hopefully two or three times a month. Part of my motivation is selfish; I need a better way than bookmarks and reader functions to sort all my links.

However, hopefully the info can also help other people.

Wind/ Transmission/ Energy

Siemens signed a lease for a 74,000 square foot warehouse in Wichita for a new wind power distribution center.
BP is buying 262 1.6 MW GE turbines for the 60,000 acre Flat Ridge II expansion.
According to the CEP blog, Clean Line Energy appears to be proceeding quickly with its application to become a utility in the state of Kansas. The Clean Line project pending in Kansas is the Grain Belt Express, which is hoping to move 3,500 MW of wind out of state. To Missouri.
The DOE blog covers CEP's successful Take Charge program, which recently helped Kansans save more than $2.3 million in energy costs by improving energy efficiency.
The Kansas Supreme Court ordered the Wabaunsee County District Court to reconsider the second part of the Wabaunsee County wind case. The issue is whether the county zoning against wind power constituted a takings from private property owners under the Commerce Clause. (For a more lawyerly take, click here.) The case is Zimmerman v. Wabaunsee County, BTW.
Do you know what a "brownfield" is? That's jargon for "yucky contaminated former industrial land not bad enough (or too connected) to receive a Superfund designation." However, all the industrial infrastructure - transmission, substations, etc. - is usually still intact, and the land could indeed be suitable for new uses. EPA and DOE are studying the potential of a Kansas City brownfield for solar power and biogas generation.
For those who have followed the military think tank CNA's studies on energy, environment, and defense over the past several years, there is a new one out on on solutions to U.S. dependence on foreign oil. (For the report on national security and climate change, click here; for energy and national security risks, click here; for links between national security, energy, and the economy, click here.)
We finally got a Wind for Schools turbine up here in Jeff County. Yay!

Conservation/ Environment/ Sustainability

WATER. Fabulous article by Michael Pearce at the Wichita Eagle on the huge problem that Kansas faces from sedimentation accumulating in our reservoirs. For example, John Redmond Reservoir (the cooling source for the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant owned by Westar Energy) now averages only six feet deep and has only 58% of its original capacity. Blue green algae is mentioned briefly, but it would be nice to see an equally in-depth article on that topic, too.
A K-State researcher will be discussing recent changes in Kansas land use practices regarding the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), in particular regarding potential uses for cellulosic biofuels.
Due to recent droughts in the Midwest, stocks of native grass seed are running low. Over 300,000 new CRP acres have been enrolled in Kansas this year, and much of it needs to be seeded. There is some seed available, but it ain't cheap - some prices have already gone up as much as 25% due to the lack of supply.
Could the pathogen that causes "sudden oak death" become a factor in the Midwest? Yeesh.
The Department of Interior has identified its top 101 conservation priorities. The two for Kansas are Flint Hills Legacy Conservation Area and the Kansas River Water Trail.
The new Flint Hills Legacy Conservation Area was officially recognized back in October. (So, DOI, that means there's a free space on the list for you to identify a new pending conservation priority for Kansas, right?)
Wichita ranks last in the 2011 Sustainable Cities Survey. Ow. Especially for a city that wants to attract more green business (see Siemens, above).
A nice sampling of Kansas migratory birds.
Wildreads is a blog brought to you by the Friends of the National Conservation Training Center. Currently, they are discussing Bill Sherwonit's Changing Paths, his book on the Alaskan Arctic Wilderness.

Climate Change

Did you know that we have a U.S. Global Change Research Program quietly plugging along, considering the potential implications of climate change for our nation? The focus is more adaptation rather than mitigation, and its research process is currently open for public comment. I love their 2009 report and look at it all the time for ag-related info, and will be happy to see updates. For their assessment of climate change on the Great Plains, click here.
NASA launches new and waaaay more sophisticated satellite to study weather patterns and climate change.
Old article, but I never got it posted before, and lots of Kansas folks are quoted - it is not farmer-friendly messaging, to put it mildly (NYTimes), but read it anyway: farmers, crop insurance, climate change. To give you incentive, Senator Pat Roberts is quoted.
For a far more farmer/ rancher friendly take on ag and climate change, check out this Kentucky guy. (No offense to the NYT, but sometimes, they really don't help.)
One of the Koch-funded scientists changed his view on climate change. Ie, it is happening.

Kansas Coal Controversy

KDHE filed a brief telling the Kansas Supreme Court that the EPA had no major problems with the permit for the long-battled Sunflower Electric coal-fired power plant. The EPA sent a letter to the Court saying er, no, we've had problems with it for years and told both KDHE and Sunflower so multiple times. The Sierra Club plans to have fun with this one. As well they might.

Cattle
This is my blog, I am a rancher's daughter, and if I want to include cows in my idea of conservation and environment, then I may.

This came from CSMonitor but I post it because it gave me pause - Texas cattlemen are coping with climate change by leasing lands in Kansas? Really? Anyone know about this?
Very geeky yet readable article on heat stress in cattle. I liked it.
Every time I hear environmentalists take on the cattle industry, I want to scream. I'm not saying don't do it. No one, no industry, should be immune from consumers asking good questions. I am saying - please be smart about asking these questions, if you do. And try to have a clue about the importance of cultural differences in developing your communications strategy.
But to cheer you up (after I just was snarky), I really liked how this Cattle Network writer found some common ground.

Writing

Dear Google: Google Reader. What the...? (Way to pull a Netflix, people.) My favorite quote so far came from the Blogs of War Twitter feed: "Google Reader is like Gaddafi ugly now. Please undo."
And so, I am considering Feedreader. Or anything else, really, that is readable. You kind of have to be able to read the $@%!! feeds for them to be %$@^* functional.
Are you an author, trying to get Goodreads to work for you? Here is the unabridged guide from Novel Publishing Group.
For grammar/ editing geeks, this month's Q&A is now up at the Chicago Manual of Style. (OK, so no one but me will read that.)

No recipe in this entry. I know! But I am working on one for pumpkin coffee cake, so look for that to be posted soon. Pumpkins... and squash bugs, and climate change, and pesticides. YUCK.

But very yummy coffeecake.

Climate and Cooking - The Plight of the Endangered Banana-Chocolate Chip-Peanut Butter Muffin

2011-11-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, such a muffin does exist. Like the sparrow - pshaw! who needs a sparrow? they're everywhere - this muffin's ingredients seem commonplace. Peanuts, bananas, chocolate, all are in plentiful supply at grocery stores throughout the, er, developed world. (The "er" because this all reminds me of the Barbie fishing pole conundrum. Yay progress.)

But if there were an endangered species listing for "Favorite Recipes Under Threat From Climate Change," this muffin would arguably be near the top of the list.

Husband: "Honey... Could you... please, you know... make more?"

So make the recipe, fast! Buy up all the ingredients, while you can still afford them... ha, wait. Peanut butter, affordable?

Sadly, this muffin's death spiral has probably already begun.

Banana-Chocolate Chip-Peanut Butter Muffins
(original recipe here)

1/2 cup butter (I'm not even going to discuss what climate change can do to dairy cows)
1 cup sugar (3/4 cup sugar is actually fine)
2 eggs (heat plus chickens, not good either)
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (see below for comments)
2/3 cup peanut butter (reduced fat works great, also see below)
1 tablespoon milk (Try whole milk. It cooks much better)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I bet vanilla isn't going to get any cheaper with climate change, either)
2 cups all purpose flour (I will leave grain crops for another day)
1 teaspoon baking soda (?anyone?)
1/2 teaspoon salt (ditto?)
3/4 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips (again, see below - and I actually just dot the muffins with a few regular-sized dark chocolate chips for a topping)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, cream 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. (Point of interest: Is your mixer running on electricity generated from the fossil fuels that produce the greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change? 60% of my electricity comes from coal power, mixed with a little bit of natural gas. The remaining 40% comes from hydro, wind, and nuclear).

Add three eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. SERIOUSLY. Do not mess up that step. BTW, never run your mixer over medium speed for this recipe, either. Beat in the mashed bananas, peanut butter, milk, and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in separate bowl. Add to creamed mixture until just moistened. Do not over-mix. Add chocolate chips, if that is your plan.

Fill greased or paper-lined muffin tins about two-thirds full. Sprinkle with chocolate chips, again if that is your plan. Bake at 350 degrees (or 325 degrees convection) for 14-18 minutes, and/or use basic observation skills and common sense. Use your nose, too, the muffins should smell done. Cool muffins in tins for five minutes, before removing them to cool further on a wire rack.

WHY THESE MUFFINS ARE ENDANGERED

Let the IPCC focus on the vexing questions (ie, to what extent recent extreme weather events are related to climate change). I care about the big picture, too, but I also care about chocolate. Scientists definitely agree that chocolate beans - and coffee bean crops, too, for that matter - are at risk from climate change.

Crops can only grows within certain climate zones, and according to various seasonal cycles of precipitation and temperature shifts. Most commercial crops are in fact adapted to a pretty fair range of variability. However, one of the major impacts of climate change is increased climate variability - such as unexpected temperature spikes or plunges, precipitation fluctuations, etc., often experienced out of season (ie, a long cold rainy spell at a weird time).

If this extreme variability strikes at a particularly vulnerable point in the crop cycle, such as during germination, bam. You are going to have some rate of crop failure. Ultimately, crop failure leads to higher prices at the grocery store.

Growing coffee and bananas together. Credit: Yahoo News.

Yeah. And if you have a muffin recipe, like this one, that depends on several ingredients that are already known to be near climate thresholds for their crop - these could turn into REALLY expensive muffins. Average yearly temperatures in coffee and chocolate growing areas are projected to increase at least two degrees Celsius over the next four decades. Temperature rise has an inevitable impact on the moisture cycle - evaporation, transpiration, etc. - and all of these shifts have the potential to be very hard on plants.

Peanut butter also experienced multiple problems with weather variability this year, including a long, deadly drought. When I think of peanut butter, my first thought is not actually these muffins - my first thought is the church food pantry, which always needs more peanut butter to distribute for families with kids. According to the LATimes, 90% of U.S. households consume peanut butter. I would bet than in lower-income households that can't afford much meat, peanut butter is proportionately a pretty critical protein staple. For now.

Bananas - well, this is an interesting story. Researchers are trying to figure out "intercropping" - or how to grow coffee beans and banana crops together, in order to help adapt to the effects of climate change. Can similar techniques work with cocoa beans...? The article doesn't say.

At any rate, my point: These muffins won't go out with a bang. They will go out slowly, with Husband and Toddler whimpering in the background because they miss them so. Due to rising food costs, I bet that over the next decade, the Endangered Banana-Chocolate Chip-Peanut Butter Muffin will likely disappear from my baking rotation.

On one hand, it's just a muffin. On the other hand, think of all the farmers whose livelihoods are endangered. If you endanger livelihoods, you endanger economies, and if you endanger economies, political systems start shaking in their boots... and some of these political systems are none too stable to begin with.

Now I've depressed you.

Go eat a muffin!

World population hits 7 billion on Halloween - not a coincidence

2011-10-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

Yeah. It can't be. Scary. I highly recommend this NPR video showing how the world population grew from 300 million one thousand years ago, to seven billion today, with a projected leveling out around ten billion by the end of the century.

Meet Boo, my latest kitty. Long story (as per usual).

Population growth... well, it definitely crystallizes the perennial environmental question about limits. What are the limits? What are the boundaries? Where does it end? How do we manage the risks, how do we plan - if we do? (And who is "we," for that matter?)

Or do we just roll with it and depend on reactions, instincts, luck, faith, continued soil fertility, ample water supplies (quality and quantity), relatively stable climate cycles, democratic governments, at least somewhat fair resource distribution, sharing, peace, and ... well.

Yeah.

Happy Halloween!

Conservation, Climate, Banana Pudding and Gay Farmers (link dump!)

2011-10-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

You will have to first read through the environmental and conservation updates to get to the delicious recipes and gay farmers. At least, that was my plan.

Conservation and Environment.

Imagine flying into a hurricane to study the weather. NOAA does it.

Climate change. Sent from my friend Joe - crop scientists are pondering how heat (and especially high nighttime temperatures) could pose the major crop threat to crops under global warming. Not that lack of water won't create giant problems, too. The wonderful Jerry Hatfield is quoted in the article (and I interviewed him here).

Also, bad or good, you can make money off of climate change, right? Here's some guys trying to make money, er, help farmers handle increased weather volatility risks. Hey. If you help build it, don't complain when they, er, come. That ended up sounding quite wrong but I am at a loss for an edit so it stands.
Nitrogen management. Nitrogen use is key to modern commercial farming, but inefficient and ineffective applications can have very bad environmental effects - and plus, when you use too much nitrogen, you are spending too much money on farming inputs. Who needs that?

At any rate, very interesting new nitrogen use report out recently from the USDA Economic Research Service. Policy recommendations included. It's what all the smart Kansas conservationists are reading.
Kansas - Energy Efficiency Fail. Oh, snap. ACEEE ranks Kansas 48th out 50 states in energy efficiency policy. Probably because we have nothing really resembling effective, meaningful energy efficiency policies on the books, and related dockets at the KCC so far never seem to result in much. Governor Brownback also didn't help the cause much when he closed down Efficiency Kansas and gave all the money to ethanol producers. (Just saying. With all due respect.)

However, considering that a team of brilliant Kansas women - ahem - gave birth to the famous Take Charge Challenge energy efficiency program, this low ranking does seem a bit harsh. Maybe we can renegotiate.
Farm Bill. So you think you are an environmentalist? Or a conservationist, or creation care-ist, or whatever? Are you paying attention to the Farm Bill? (This survey says you are, and that you care about conservation.) Farm policy is de facto environmental policy. I am about to put Keith Good's wonderful Farm Policy blog on my daily reads list, just to keep up on it. Another great source is Chris Clayton of DTN.
The four year anniversary of KDHE Secretary Roderick Bremby denying the Sunflower coal plant permit. Man, that gives me chills. Lots of lives changed. So much has changed. So much hasn't, too, but on the balance, I think change has the edge and the momentum (despite that appalling energy efficiency ranking). Via Scott Allegrucci of GPACE.
NOAA Flickr stream for cool imagery. See photo above! Use the NOAA photos! Credit them!

Jimmy Buffet would approve.

Friends edition.

Imagine my surprise when I checked out Facebook the other night to find out that our friends, Courtney and Denise (Husband and Denise were skateboard-punk-rocker buddies in high school) were featured in a recent Grist article about the LGBT movement and sustainable farming. (Grist knows that Kansas exists? Wow!)
My friend Christina, a nurse at the VA, passed on this unbelievable, unbelievable ten part Huffington Post series on wounded Veterans - Beyond the Battlefield. As Christina put it, "not for the faint of heart." The costs of continuing care are daunting, to put it mildly.
And, that beautiful picture to the right, sigh, is from my friend Jasonne who lives in Australia and just went snorkeling out on the Great Barrier Reef. I am posting it because - we all occasionally need to see a palm tree.

Daily Life, Recipes, Writing.

Banana Pudding - It Can Kill You. Want to fall into an instant diabetic coma? Then mainline this recipe. Via KitchenMonki, which I am trying to make up my mind about. Will it really make my life easier? Really? Really?
New writing software to experiment with - via Jane Friedman. I am seriously considering Scrivener.

Conserving Kansas, and the Vexed Question of Wind

2011-10-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

"An environmentalist in Kansas," someone snickered at me the other day. "How do you do it?"

I blinked.

Love my state, love my sky. And my air quality.

"Environmentalist, huh," I stalled for a moment. That's not how I think of myself, really - not that I have any problems with environmentalists (I make my living off them, after all, thank you guys). Then I got it. The guy wasn't just dinging me, he was in fact dinging my state. Kansas takes a lot of hits, and I'll admit it deserves many of them... but, come on. Just because there's not a lot of crazy extreme hippies around here, that means we don't care about the land? Couldn't be further from the truth.

"I don't know what it's like where you come from," I said. "But here we have conservationists, too." (Maybe part of the tipping point is how many guns you have in your house, I'm not sure.)

OK, maybe not such a snappy comeback. But my mocker was actually more of a conservationist himself, and so that got him off his good ol' boy rear in a hurry. Not the point - my point is that when we got off the phone, I thought dang, I can see where he has a case.

Because I think that, everyday, I see Kansans too dismiss environmentalism as crazy and extreme. Unfortunately, when they do, they are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. They reject environmental ideas altogether, including their own strong heritage of conservation. This means they lose out on the power that conservation has to help solve major questions about the environment and sustainability.

And in Kansas, about wind power. Wind energy.

So environmentalists, I'm not writing to you today. You know who you are; you know what you want. I want to remind readers about what conservation is, the latent American environmental tradition that has slipped below the currents in recent years. Plenty of people embedded in the heart of the conservation movement could write this piece better than I, and my thoughts are only a starting point.

Spearville wind farm, view from original Cole homestead in Jetmore.

A quick reminder on what conservation is: Conservation is a pragmatic approach to efficient uses of natural resources - air, wind, water, soil, sun, biomass, animal life and biodiversity, bioregions, habitat, etc. - managing them for their long-term sustainability and survival. The benefits must be considered in both the short and long-term, and in terms of society and economy. Conservation approaches food and fuel technologies with the knowledge that they all have environmental benefits and burdens that must be weighed carefully over time. No one person or entity has the right to use more of their share of resources, or to dump more of their waste products back into our environment. It's simply not fair or right.

Conservation is not as simple as applying environmentalism to the real world, but it helps some people to think of it this way. It is also a gross exaggeration to say that you find more conservationists on the land and more environmentalists in the cities, but I've worked with both sides enough to see where this idea comes from. Conservation is not just common sense, but there is a lot of it embedded. Hunters and fishers are often seen as conservationists, hikers and birdwatchers as environmentalists; I personally think that if I ever got funding to head out on the trails and back fields and do some surveys, the results might just surprise us with how people actually see themselves. Beware generalizations.

Conservationists. People with conservationist tendencies. Do not forget your heritage. Do not forget who you are. Your voice is needed, more than ever, and in some sense Kansas is ground zero for these discussions. Consider the vexed case of wind power development.

Vexed might be a stretch. Kansas has a lot going for it with wind energy - according to Kimberly Svaty of the Wind Coalition, Kansas will more than double its production of wind energy in the next eighteen months, with eight projects totalling $2.7 billion in investment and producing 1,388 megawatts of power (including the 419 MW installation by BP). (And that's not even counting the recent billion dollars plus invested into transmission lines.)

The national wind development picture seems likely to slow, but the Kansas wind resource is just so good - second in the nation behind Texas - we will likely keep on going. Of course, the growth would be better if we could get the Production Tax Credit extended, if a national Renewable Energy Standard would pass (yeah, right)... but given the bipartisan dramafests that continually erupt over national climate and energy policy, not likely. Our wind manufacturing sector (which serves resource areas outside of Kansas) may well take a hit. However, our wind resource development will probably continue.

And so, how do we shape that development? How do we guide it? Should it be full steam ahead, no holds barred, or should we think about it some more? There is never a free lunch, no free pass. All energy technologies have costs and benefits. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and pollutants, wind power is much more environmentally sound than coal power. Wind still has environmental impacts, though. Scientists are still working to understand the impact of intensive wind turbine development on grassland species and habitats.

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback did close off the Flint Hills to wind development, but there are many other prized habitats in Kansas that lay outside that zone. The question of what those are, and how to protect them, is still up for discussion. While outside presences like U.S. Fish and Wildlife are very valuable allies, surely Kansans themselves have ideas to share on what conservation issues matter most in shaping the course of wind development.

Which is where conservation comes in. Conservation offers a tradition, a framework, an ethos that can help us consider how to prioritize and balance different uses of the environment, toward the ultimate sustainability of all. This approach is not just for wind power - Kansas agriculture has a strong conservation heritage too, and that industry faces many questions right now about water and soil management, efficient chemical use, and more. Climate change will only make these issues more pressing. If ever there was a moment to return to conservation ideals, now is the time.

Conservation is an approach that can knit together so many diverse elements - all the things that make your head spin when you start trying to figure out environmental issues, and what to do about the mess the world seems to be in lately. Wind, water, dust, soil. Raw materials, manufacture, and transport. Waste disposal, run-off areas, emissions sinks. Water and air quality. Soil conservation. Recreation and sustenance (yes, many people do still depend on fishing and hunting for significant parts of their diets).

And the animals - yeah, I know, it would be nice to plow all that habitat up, but really - the animals were here first. And when conservationists include biodiversity into their world view, they are also showing respect. Respect for mystery, for the belief that something much more powerful created all this, and that we are entrusted with its care and will answer for our stewardship at some point.

Or for the lack thereof, come to that.

Think what you like about environmentalists (and I need to say right now that some of my best friends are environmentalists). However, don't close your mind off. There are plenty of options.

And, as one of them, please remember - conservation.

Barbie fishing poles and "when sane people go to church"

2011-10-18T07:44:00.000-07:00

A hard freeze is coming tonight, and my friends are cleaning out their vegetable gardens. They're tired, tired, tired of the long season of produce and so are dumping the remnants all on me. Bring it ON. I am repaying them, of course, in beef. Some in cookies. Halloween owl cookies, to be precise. 'Tis the season.

Teach a Barbie doll how to fish...

We live on a lake and it seems logical, to me, that I should go fishing. The last time I did so it was fly fishing in the mountains, I was about fifteen, so I kind of need to start over again. This doesn't seem tough. Fishing. A pole, put some kind of bait on the hook (any hook), toss it in the water, sit back. No worms? No problem.

Well, not according to the men in my life, love them and bless their hearts. Yeah. Think Cabela's. Think lots of gear. Think complicated directions and instructions. Think work (and worms). All this, to me, does not smack of the essence of fishing.

So, what would Huck Finn do? Or in this case, Henrietta. Henrietta has decided to just buy a kid's fishing pole to get started with, because Toddler will need one soon, and why waste money? Thus the Barbie fishing pole.

Oh, I'm not buying it. Oh hell no. No, no, no. A mom who does not allow princesses in the house will be roasting snowballs in hell before she buys a @*&$*!@ Barbie pole, are you kidding? I only mention it because I saw the pole while browsing through beginner fishing kits, and it stunned me. Plus, my brain went, "shiny!" and before I could stop, I fell down a rabbit hole of how incredibly complicated the world is these days.

Consider. Do you know how much work it takes to produce even a Barbie fishing pole (an item recently mentioned indirectly by Trace Adkins, I believe), an item that will be used for maybe six months, if that, then dumped in a landfill somewhere? It's made of plastic, the raw materials being fossil fuels - ie, the ones produced mainly in foreign countries. To get plastic feedstocks for manufacturing takes all sorts of gnarly processing. The toy design. The packaging. The licensing, trademarking, and intellectual property (yep, I'm pretty sure Barbie takes all that). The adhesives - the right kind of adhesives - for the decals. The ink for the packaging. Transport to markets. Etc. And people, individual people, did all this. Somewhere, each step along this line is someone's job. Someone is an expert in every angle, every nuance. Every step also has an environmental consequence, an off-gas, a pollutant, you name it.

All this for... a Barbie fishing pole.

Change of subject. There have been a few scheduling challenges lately, and an acquaintance and I were working out alternatives. They suggested meeting on a Sunday instead.

"Sure," I said. "I could meet you after church."

"Church," they replied. "Huh."

This actually happens a lot. The moment when someone finds out you have religion in your life, and they pause to adjust to the new filter. Ie, their past interactions with you flash across their mind and they quickly review all evidence in order to see if you have ever given them any reason to consider you, ah, crazy.

"Wow," they said. "It's nice that there are sane people going to church these days."

I got off the phone and laughed myself silly. I get it. I do. And it doesn't take a genius to diagnose that religion these days is facing a bit of a communications problem. The pastor actually talked about this last Sunday, how to talk about faith in a positive way without coming off like you are telling people how (not) to live, that they are going to hell, that they are bad and wrong, etc etc. Everything has gotten polarized recently, it seems, and religion has gotten caught up in the madness. Some might even say religion help kick off the madness (I simply mention that).

If I were allowed to drink coffee anymore, I would be able to link the religion back to fishing poles in an interesting and enlightening way. This morning, that is not going to happen. (Until I hit "submit" and publish the blog entry, then I'll think of what I really wanted to say.)

However, everyone can recognize some common ground between the issues - life, religion, fishing, it all gets just as complicated as you let it.

Accumulations - radio, wind goodness, cartoons, and of course Toby Keith

2011-10-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

Radio is schlock, I know - but I happen to like schlock, much like I also have a weakness for Vin Diesel movies. Everyone I know has moved on to satellite radio, playlists, etc etc in the car, okay, no prob. But the schlock is worth it for me, because in exchange you get these tiny little cool moments.

Like yesterday. I was listening to the schlockiest country music radio station in Kansas (which is really saying something), and the DJ took a request on air. The caller's voice sounded young. I waited in resignation for her to request Taylor Swift (stereotypical of me, I know).

Instead she asked for Toby Keith's latest - Made in America. The song is about an older couple. I can see the couple being the kind of grandparents some kids might want to have, but don't. They provide values, stability, a baseline. The song is also fairly political, in an anti-NAFTA kind of way - and in a pro-renewables-compatible way, IMHO.

my old man’s that old man,
spent his life livin’ off the land,
dirty hands, and a clean soul.
breaks his heart seein’ foreign cars,
filled with fuel that isn’t ours
and wearin’ cotton he didn’t grow

he’s got the red, white, and blue flyin’ high on the farm
simper fi tattooed on his left arm
spends a little more at the store for a tag in the back that says u.s.a.
won’t buy nothin’ that he can’t fix,
with wd40 and a craftsman wrench
he ain’t prejudice he’s just, made in America

"Thank you, sir," the young caller said politely to the DJ. And I thought, huh. Didn't see that request coming. Not sure what it means... but, this is why I listen to the radio. Plus, part of my brain likes tracking the different commercials and how they change over time, like the rise in ads for payday loans and rent-to-own furniture, etc., figuring out why they play on some channels and not others, at different times of the day and week, etc.

In other news, a great cartoonist that everyone should check out - Kate Beaton. In part, she writes about people who got left out of history (because the victors write history, as we all know). Very funny. Also a cool review on recent economic history and economic inequality, via Climateer.

Wind power, energy, environment. Link dump. Much of the news is regarding the 400 MW BP windpower plant, Flat Ridge II, announced for central/ western Kansas, the power to be bought by (gasp!) a utility in Missouri. Missouri... I think we own you. Or BP does.

Hutch News on the BP expansion, including good interview with BP's Karl Pierce. Written by John Green, probably one of the best energy reporters in Kansas.
Brownback on Kansas wind, rah rah.
Kansas Biological Survey has a neat assessment tool up for prairie chicken habitat.
Blue green algae in Kansas waters, and nutrient run-off. Letter to the editor from Friends of the Kaw Riverkeeper Laura Calwell. Full disclosure: FOK is one of my clients.

Convincing anti-PTC argument. A colleague of mine attended the recent Kansas Energy Fair reported to me an anti-Production Tax Credit argument that I found very persuasive. (Since the info is thirdhand I won't report the source, but I do think the source sounds like a good interview if I ever get the chance.)

At any rate, the wind industry as a whole has long fought to keep the Production Tax Credit, which is essentially a 2.2 cents per kWh hour subsidy for wind. All energy is subsidized, BTW, including oil, gas, and coal, but wind gets the most grief for it on the PR side. The PTC expires in 2012, and its renewal is uncertain.

Argument: From the Kansas perspective, screw the PTC. We have such an excellent wind resource that we don't need it. States with poor wind resources do need it (I almost named names, whoops). If the PTC goes away, then it makes wind power development uneconomic in those states - and thus makes low cost Kansas wind an even more valuable resource. The downside is that the loss of the PTC will lead to a dip in the manufacturing sector, but the market will eventually adjust. You know, because markets always do such a good job of that. OK, I think we found the weak spot in the argument.

And, just because I don't want to lose this link... I need to remember Jutoh.

Happy weekend!

Raising Nice Kids - in a World Where Nice Ain't Gonna Cut It

2011-10-06T07:16:00.000-07:00

Yep, the perennial question: How to raise your offspring with a balance of manners and survival skills.

This comes up on the playground all the time. Toddler is still little enough that I need to follow her around on the equipment to make sure she doesn't take a header down a three story twisty slide, etc. Thus, I am able to insert helpful phrases for her interactions with other kids - "share," "take turns," etc.

And a little while back, when a little boy pushed her and she slugged him a good one, I got to, um, work with that as a teaching moment.

Teaching moment, toddlers. Yeah. First, here's my complicated parental perspective: He started it. She needs to finish it, or at least learn to set boundaries. Otherwise bullies will run rampant over her in life. Does she necessarily need to move straight to a punch? No, although I can see the argument for that in certain cases. Ideally, of course, she could see a bully coming and also learn skills to head off confrontation. As long as that doesn't take up too much airtime; spending your life avoiding confrontation is not helpful. Don't want to teach that.

I do want her to be a nice kid - but this is not a nice world. It never has been, but more and more we see the gloves coming off. I can't raise her as if everything is perfect out there and as if people don't do mean things. I don't want her to close off. I just want her to be aware, so she can protect herself. And protect others, for that matter. If you're nice but you don't have the guts to speak up for those less powerful, then you really aren't being much help.

All I said in the moment was, "He made you mad, huh? Can you tell him to take turns? Or ask a grown-up for help." (And if the other parent freaks out that her kid just got socked? Not my problem. Now if my kid punched first, yes, but that's a whole 'nother scenario.)

Later on, when she talked about the incident again at home, I just repeated the basic info. I tried to provide alternatives to slugging, but not diminishing or dismissing her original problem. I want to honor her instinct to punch back at someone trying to push her around, but help her think about options beyond the punch. Also, whatever choice you make, there are consequences. We discussed whether her punch made the other little boy sad, etc., how that made her feel, all of that.

And after all that, I wished I could have a beer.... but, we don't drink. And that's another thing. As she grows up, she's going to have to learn how (not) to party. That will be a fun one. She's going to have to learn all sorts of survival skills (cars, gardening, recognizing snakes and poison ivy, gun safety, horses and animals, food prep, swimming, laundry, being aware of her surroundings, setting goals, taking action, how to be tough but keep an open heart, her daddy will teach her how to put out an electrical fire like he taught me yesterday, long story), and every family's version of this list will differ.

Except for getting along with others. Whatever else you teach, we all have to teach that. Either we do it deliberately or we do it accidentally, by the example we set.

(Of course, I have at least three friends who will read this and then come up to slug ME on the playground.)

Winter's coming. Do you know where your generator is?

2011-09-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

I usually trip over our generator every time I put recycling out in the garage. And then yesterday, I realize - it's not there in that corner anymore. Hmm.

Off topic: Been watching trains lately, thinking about goods transport.

Oh well, Husband will know where it is. At any rate, my point: now's a good time to think about these things, before the snow and ice start to fly. Lately, I find myself clicking on Mother Earth News more often than usual - it's pretty much my pre-winter To Do list. (For storm prep, try this one.)

Wait, a climate change/ global warming believer who is worried about snow? Ha ha. And yes. Because (and I do understand, the following point is often hard to grasp from mass media) one of the major problems with climate change is increased climate variation. Ie, the weather has even more crazy, unpredictable, and often unseasonable mood swings that hang around and wear out their welcome - ie, there is also the potential for long cold snaps, not just long hot ones. I also have a sneaking suspicion that what used to be snow weather is now turning into ice weather, and ice storms seem to be even harder on rural power lines.

So. Do you know where your generator is? Is it in good shape? Enough gas? Etc etc. We also got the chimney cleaned, thank you to Eddie's Wood Water and Spa, and we need to spend a weekend hauling wood. (Um, really I mean Husband needs to do that. Who am I kidding?) Garden also needs to be put to bed for the winter. The summer heat was so hard on it, I'm almost tempted to (have Husband) plow the whole thing under.

And speaking of climate change, here's a very nice example of someone who has learned how to communicate the local levels of change - Katherine Hayhoe, professor at Texas Tech, in an interview with Yale e360.

Also, for those of you tracking transmission projects (there's still a few of those readers hanging around, right?), check out this cool new database from the Center for Rural Affairs on new lines proposed and under construction for the Midwest.

For those of you who do not know what transmission is - our electric grid is made up of generation sources (coal plants, gas plants, wind farms, hydropower, etc.), transmission lines (lines capable of moving large volumes of power to load centers), distribution lines (smaller lines that feather out like capillaries, sending power to businesses and homes), and - you. And everything that you plug in. And, hopefully in the near future, the power that you too perhaps are able to send back out on the grid (if the interconnection and net metering standards in your state are anything approaching decent; don't get me started).

At any rate - if sections of the grid don't have good transmission, they are a bit like a body with no arteries and no veins. You can't circulate power from areas that have it to areas that need it. For example, wind development takes place mostly in rural areas with very poor access to transmission, so to transition to a clean energy economy, we need to improve our transmission system.

Of course, during a major power outage, your home generator power is the absolute last thing you want to send out on the grid. And I know everyone knows this. And yes, Husband knows, too.

Interviews, Fieldwork, People-Watching, Writing

2011-09-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

In the basement yesterday, I found a pile of old notebooks that I should probably burn (and if Husband reads this blog before I get home, then he will probably do it for me). They contain a fascinating set of fieldwork notes from my early twenties - essentially, a record of getting hit on.

Pin with care.

Perhaps I should back up and explain that my undergraduate degree included a major in cultural anthropology. On some level, this discipline is how grown-ups pack a set of ethics around playing Harriet the Spy, and manage to make a living at it.

I never took anthropology that far. Instead I just used it to better my abilities to observe, listen, take notes, and occasionally gently nudge a conversation in one direction or another and see what I could learn from it.

Luckily I have lost touch with 99.9% of the guys I knew during my twenties, because they would all writhe in horror to know that as they chatted me up at coffeehouses, I was taking notes. Did they bring up politics? News events? How did they describe themselves? Did they mention my hair? My eyes? Were they stupid enough to mention any other body parts? (Although that usually happened at bars, not coffeehouses). Did they begin by telling where they were from? What they did? What they believed? Did they move from personal topics to social ones, or vice versa, how did religion work in to it? Were there channels where the conversations truly started to flow? Where did it suddenly hit dams, obstacles? Where do people connect, where do they back away? What were the time intervals involved, how fast did the subject move from intimacy to disengagement, back and forth?

If you knew me back then, consider these books burned. (There was even a graph, and I think I doodled with percentage samples, too.) The good news is, I didn't use last names. Some vestige of ethics must have fluttered deep in the recesses of my brain. If you think the guys are writhing in horror right now (and a few girls, too), then just imagine the reaction of my former anthropology professors. At the time, I just figured that while I was pursuing a sort of social anatomy, the guys were pursuing another version, and we all have different goals, right?

OK. If that helps me sleep at night. The thing is, I have turned the anthropology into all sorts of people-watching projects over time, from reporting to public relations, communications, and writing for books, and it interests me even more now, how a sense of ethics varies with every incarnation.

At one extreme end, part of my dissertation involved interviews. I had to fill out an insane number of ethical disclosure-ish forms with the university where I promised all sorts of things, probably including an avoidance of human sacrifice.

In the middle of the spectrum is being a reporter. Simply by virtue of that job description, any potential interviewee is assumed to know the rules of the game when they talk to you (much like being a blogger covering the Kansas legislature).

And if you are a writer - that's the other extreme. For the kind of people-watching that feeds fiction, you follow no rules that I can see. Not at all. Not unless you make them up yourself.

For nonfiction - well, it seems to depend on who you talk to. Luckily, I learned from taking all those awful and way too personal notes about poor, defenseless guys who just wanted a little, er, company. Lesson: I never want to get any material, ever again, that I will someday feel yucky about.

Also, working as a nonfiction writer (one who depends heavily on interviews) seems to place you somewhere between reporter and academic. You have responsibilities to both your interviewees and to your readers. And above all, you must treat both with respect. If you don't have respect for something deeper, something inexpressibly, preciously human, then you don't have a story anyway. Part of respect involves discretion in recording the things that people don't know that they are telling you, and would be horrified to find out they had said.

Anyway, after you people-watch long enough, you realize that, really, so much of communication and expression takes place in the pause spaces of life - wonderful yet vague openings, where meaning can go so many ways. If you are going to try and pin the butterfly, act with extreme care. Not only that, act with humility.

But please also take this piece of advice. Be very careful of who you are hitting on at coffeehouses.

Putting Bricks on Your Own Head

2011-09-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

First, in an unrelated note, I'd like to say:

Dear person who decided to "drive to the country" and leave a litter of unsteady, approximately three month old kittens beside a fairly deserted but fast-traveled road - you did not have to do that.

Too many kittens? Try the Humane Society, #@$!%!

In other news, I was reminded the other day of old-timers who would joke about putting a brick on the head of a young 'un, just to slow down their growth a bit.

Me, I would like to put a brick on the head of fall and slow it down a bit. I've already heard the Canadian geese, seen the ducks on the wing, and watched the leaves fall and I'm wondering - is winter going to get here sooner than I want?

And of course if I ever meet the person responsible for the kitten situation, a brick in the vicinity of the head will be the least of their problems. Even though I'm pretty sure powers much greater than me noticed the incident, too, and that there will be a reckoning.

But... I recently watched someone put a brick on their own head. Very deliberately. They did it almost on instinct, because their default is set to "no."

No, I can't do that. No, I can't try that. No, I don't want to. No, that's not my thing. No, that's for other people. No, I like how I do it now.

Scary, huh.

I'm sorry. There is no happy ending when you put a brick on your own head. Much like there was no happy ending for those kittens.

Pondering Publication and Price Points

2011-09-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

Writing a book - gee, it sounds so easy. Especially when you've already written a dissertation, research papers and articles, white papers, various policy analyses and public comments, research reports, multiple technical and science articles, blah blah blah and my clever readers have already spotted a major problem:

Good ideas, like fawns, hide - luckily, often in plain sight.

That's geek stuff, Maril. Real people don't actually read it. And upon honest reflection, I came to admit that I couldn't blame them.

Admitting this helped soooo much with the writing process. That part is, knock wood, zooming along. I also sat down and did a market analysis (not so different from a policy analysis, actually), and figured out - I am inherently a niche writer. It's the destiny of a subject matter specialist. This is not a problem for writing at all; turns out, I can take my niche and make it fascinating. (Whew.)

However, marketing turns into a whole 'nother deal. While I can identify a strong target market of readers, and I know exactly how to reach them... there's probably not enough of them to generate the kind of sales that would result in interest from a traditional publishing company, agent, etc. I simply don't think those folks could make the necessary margin on my nonfiction writing, in order to meet their overhead.

This is a long way of saying, for this project, indie publishing is probably the way to go. To that end, I've been hanging out in those online communities, right there with all the genre writers - the people who are really figuring out how to make self-publishing work. It's a business, and all businesses come with models; you need to educate yourself to make good choices on production, distribution, rights management, the whole shebang.

Except... most of these people do - obviously - fiction. There are certainly a few nonfiction people in there, but I have yet to find a strong thought community doing the same sort of systematic analyses (or making some key distinctions) for nonfiction. I'm sure this place exists. I just need to find the tribe and meet some people.

However, I'm also at the point where I need to start nailing down my budget, cost projections, income model, etc. I need to figure out possible price points, and how those may vary over the life of the book. (Keep in mind, most self-pub sales appear to start out quite slow, then grow over time, usually in relationship to the author's continued production numbers.)

Crapsky.

OK, no problem, I can do this. First, identify the variables and relationships: the life cycle of the book, the content of the book itself (length, value, perceived value), production costs, the size and book buying patterns of the target audience (to the extent known), and last but not least, peer/ community/ genre pricing norms. Wow, I'm probably missing a ton here.

So, second step - admit you know very little about these variables and relationships, and that you are flying by the seat of the pants.

That said, for an e-book of about 30,000 words, targeted at an environmental, conservation, and sustainability audience....

.... that e-book should cost about the price of a latte with tip, right? An average price of somewhere around 3.99?

So scientific. I know (and a silly joke, too). Thoughts?

Bewaring Wild Hares and Tangents

2011-09-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

Nah. I'm not going to watch out for distractions. I'm going to embrace them. Of course, distraction, thy name is Toddler. So in my case, this is a natural solution. Likewise, I see no signs that my desk or my life will soon cease being a magnet for randomness, so, might as well embrace that, too. If you can just find the sweet spot, it's actually a very interesting way to live.

110 stories. Never forget.

Link dump coming up - wind power, climate change, cows, nitrogen run-off (what?), the usual. Proud firefighter wife photo dump comes first, though.

There. I married such a hottie. And after he climbed 110 stories for the Kansas City Firefighter 9-11 Memorial Stairclimb Challenge, he was very literally hot, too.

Wonderful event. Very well put together (by a Lawrence firefighter, of course). There were bagpipes. There was also lots of loud blasting classic rock, cheering, and general boisterousness. And honor guards. There were also moments of silence and prayer - but the moments of loudness are what firefighters are really like. So it was a good way to remember the fallen from September 11. No dignitaries anywhere that I could see. No big speeches, no politics. Just firefighters.

Climate change and cows (you can take the girl off the ranch...). Hasn't been a good year for cattle, wheat, or corn. I'm trying not to pay any attention whatsoever to the soybeans. But is all the extreme weather caused by climate change?

Not necessarily.* If you are a reporter, slow down. Ease back. This stuff is complicated. HOWEVER. The extreme weather is a good illustration - if there's even a chance that climate change can cause and/or intensify the damage to crops and animals that we've seen recently, do we really want to risk it?

Answer from (a section of) the ag community: Hell no. That link will take you to Cattle Network's coverage of a recently published position paper on climate change from the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America. Those crazy environmentalist extremists, oops, those ag scientists, not only confirm that climate change is happening, but they also give an excellent overview of the problems facing ag as a result.

Clean Technica also considered the impact of climate change on cattle ranching specifically. I rolled my eyes at the John Wayne image. But. Also, the comments on the article are interesting. My favorite goes something like - "just because God created this doesn't mean man can't screw it up." Yeah, no kidding.

Finally, another environmental extremist, Republican Senator Pat Roberts from Kansas, also discussed the problem of climate change for ag. (See this link too.) However, I think I should note - he might have said this at the same hearing where I believe someone else told me that politicians in attendance were complaining that climate change research would take money away from "real" ag needs.

Wind power. Republican Kansas Governor Sam Brownback says - Kansas wind is cheap, we have transmission, come buy it, now serving. U.S. Fish and Wildlife says not so fast, cowboy, don't forget the migratory birds (and probably the bats), we have to figure out a wind power habitat corridor, potential incidental take permits, etc. Because that little exercise will be fun and not complicated at all. And then, this isn't really wind power, but I found kind of a neat little offhand mention of the Topeka Frito-Lay biomass facility.

Nitrogen pollution, the unseen and looming disaster. Sorry to sound like a typical environmentalist doomsayer and crisis shrieker, but, geez. Read this, for example. Actually, Kansas has an interesting nitrogen case pending, not quite in the courts, but it sure could be at some point. Probably no one should forget that that possibility is out there.

Last but not least. The funniest thing I have read in a long time, via Climateer - by Frank Fleming of the New York Post, "Let's try real science." For example:

It’s critical that we all accept science’s conclusions. For instance, if we don’t agree on the age of the Earth, how will we know what to do when the Earth tries to buy liquor? And without knowledge of evolution, when a species goes extinct, how do we know who to notify as its next of kin?

But despite the obvious importance of science, one group of people does everything in pure defiance of scientific methods: politicians.

What do politicians do when they think they have a great idea? They just go and implement it. It’s like someone thinking he’s got a cure for cancer and immediately injecting it into everyone he can. That’s a madman, not a scientist. You always have to at least try out your idea on monkeys to make sure it doesn’t kill them.

Were farm subsidies first tried on monkeys? Social Security? Bank bailouts? No, the unscientific politicians went straight to trying all their ideas on humans, and now we have a bunch of bankrupt people instead of harmless bankrupt monkeys.

Giggle! (and sorry if the farm subsidy line offended anyone).

* Did this one come from Climateer, too? I think so.

Remembering 9/11 - Kansas City Memorial Stair Climb

2011-09-09T12:54:00.000-07:00


Lt. Daniel O'Callaghan

This Sunday, my firefighter husband will be participating in the Kansas City 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb, as part of a team from Lawrence, Kansas. A total of 343 regional firefighters will climb 110 stories, in memory of the climb that their fallen New York brothers did not - could not - complete on September 11, 2001. Donations will go to the National Fallen Firefighter Foundation. Other memorial stair climbs will also take place in Missouri, Mississippi, Iowa, Arkansas, and Nebraska.

Brian (aka Husband) has the honor of climbing in memory of Lt. Daniel O'Callaghan from Ladder Four. We spent a while online last night, reading up about O'Callaghan's life and his service to the department.

I know. There's not a lot of words for moments like this, and I'm not too sure I should try to find any. We talked about it a lot a few months ago, back when Brian signed up to do the climb, but as the day gets closer, it's harder to talk about it without tearing up.

So. Please think of us all on Sunday. Please think of your country, please remember the fallen. I know - I don't even have to ask that. Thank you.

Brian O'Neal Trigg, who will climb for Lt. O'Callaghan.

Dog Day Memory (and I know there's a lesson here)

2011-09-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

Somewhere near Leadville.

First, thanks to all of you who have been so patient with my recent lack of blog posts - did you know that Husband recently took a two week long off-road motorcycle trip to Colorado, leaving me on full-time Toddler duty? I need say no more.

Now, have I ever told the story about the beagle in the hunting trap?

Yesterday, I drove by the scene of the crime - my crime, to be specific, but that's part of the story. And, coincidentally (I'm sure), my favorite sheriff's deputy drove by, too, going the opposite direction. We waved at each other.

And, in my rearview mirror, I think I saw him rubberneck over toward the woods. Perhaps he was thinking: "Oh boy. Is she pulling over? Is there another dog back there? Oh boy."

It was a fall morning a few years ago, before Toddler was born, and by the grace of God I was working at home that day. My home office is a former screened in porch with little to no insulation, so luckily I heard the sound. Never again do I want to hear an animal make a noise like that. I knew it was the neighbor's beagle, and the howl it made was unholy, sounding more like a scream. It started high, faded low, then came the frantic, agonized barks - then nothing. Nothing at all.

Like a shot, I was out of the house and into my car. My ears are pretty accurate, and it only took about a quarter mile to get to the pullout by the creek. We walk our dogs by there on the gravel road all the time. I was sure - yes. There, not twenty feet off the road. Oh God.

Have you ever been hiking in the woods and found an animal caught in a trap? Pray that you don't. Luckily - if that's the right way to put it - this trap was one of the wire ones, not the bear jaw type (there's all kinds). The wire kind, though, tighten the more the animal struggles, eventually strangling it in two. The beagle was caught, paralyzed, in a merciless wire cinch around his ribcage. He struggled to breathe, and his eyes were blurring. His thrashing had brought him to the very edge of a steep creek bank.

I had slipped past the barbed wire fence, fought my way far enough into the woods to assess the situation, say very bad words, then run back to the car. Wire cutters. I hadn't thought much further - and I knew approaching trapped animals was, well, hell. Not good, none of this was good. I peeled out, headed back to the house.

And Husband was now home. He reacted well, found the wire cutters in faaaar less time than it would have taken me, and we were back down to the creek in probably under five minutes. Husband slid down the creek bank, cut out the dog, I wrapped its shivering form in a blanket, and then some other activities occurred.

At any rate. About an hour later, there we were. We had in our possession a couple of traps, including a giant, ugly bear jaw one (they'd been baited with hambones, not twenty feet off a road where people often walk their dogs), the dog was going to make it, Husband had given me one hell of a lecture about not packing when I charged into the woods to check out a trap (breaking all the family rules about smart self-defense, a different but related story), and I needed to call the cops and turn myself in.

If you are an animal lover, you might be saying - huh? Please allow me to explain: There is more than one way to interpret this tale. What I saw was an animal tortured and dying slowly. However, what many other people would see is that (a) the dog trespassed, (b) I trespassed, (c) I destroyed private property, and (d) we removed an animal from a hunter's trap. All illegal. Except I admittedly removed a non-game animal from the trap, which does in turn make (a)-(d) a little fuzzy.

Enter my favorite sheriff. He handled it well. Of course, all traps are (well, they should be) tagged, so we all knew who the trap belonged to. The sheriff returned the property, was noncommittal about the rest, as was I, he informed me of the law, I said yes sir, and - and, we all moved on. Not that there weren't a few bumps, but we do appear to have moved on.

Sort of. Except, several years later, I'm still thinking about the situation. Although I am comfortable I did the right thing, I have never remembered the incident and thought I was "right" - I have always remembered it and known that I made a choice, and it was a choice that other people might understandably have a valid problem with. There are always other perspectives.

I see that lesson in action every day. If I'd stuck with the law, I would have ended up in mediation, I'm sure of it. So much of my work, no matter what I do, turns out to be about standing between parties in conflict, and helping them see each other's point of view. No one has yet held hands and sung hymns afterwards. However, they do often back off on actively trying to annihilate each other. Fingers crossed.

Last week was that kind of week. It was tough to stick out in parts, and there were moments when I wondered - why am I doing this?

So it was a good time to remember the beagle.

Hauling wind blades across eastern Colorado

2011-08-14T11:32:00.001-07:00

Pretty big, aren't they? Typical wind turbine blade; my uneducated guess is this might go to at least a 1.9 MW turbine.

We've passed probably about five so far (which means we should be coming up to the sixth).

Ha! And even as I typed this, three more blades went by going westbound - totally different manufacture.

Yeah. Wind is big business out here. Which is good, because all else I see from the truck is brown grass and a desiccated corn crop.

Posted from my iPhone

Paradigm Shifts and Downtime

2011-08-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

Is your industry/ world/ life changing all around you? Are you tumbling down the rabbit hole e'en now - or are you watching others fall? Is the pressure cooker driving you nuts?

If you answered "yes," then you are probably one of my academic and/ or writing clients. What with cuts to higher education and the rise of ebooks, you folks are on the cusp of either major risk or major opportunity, depending on how you handle this transition.

If you chuckled and thought, "man, I know what that feels like," then you are one of my energy friends, who probably got your start in fossil fuels but then made the leap to renewables. The shift likely wasn't pretty, but you survived, maybe even thrived. (That link is via Climateer, a blog I have read for probably ten years now.) The shift continues, but you have your feet under you now, much better than the publishing folks do as of yet.

Some technologies - wind power, ebooks - have the power and promise to shift markets. Where markets go, the rest of us follow, like it or not.

Welcome to the world of paradigm shift. In my unqualified opinion, it will likely only get more crazy. Rethinking growth as the engine that drives our economy is a pretty big deal. More industries - all industries - will go through transitions like this, if they haven't already.

So naturally, to rest up, I need to take a little blog downtime for the next couple weeks (because these semi-weekly blog posts, sigh, can really wear you down). Just wanted to clean out a few browser tabs before going offline:

23 Essential Elements of Sharable Blog Posts - an oldie (2009) but a goodie from Chris Brogan.
Is climate change the biggest national security challenge we are facing? - by guest blogger Eric Hammel at Tom Ricks' The Best Defense (Answer: Um. YEAH.)
Two essential indie publishing blogs - Passive Voice (who seems a bit like the long lost brother of Climateer who strayed into the legal profession instead of finance) and Dean Wesley Smith. In turn, these two link to a host of excellent resources.
An agent blog you shouldn't miss - Rachelle Gardener. This is not really even an agent blog - it's a "how to act like a professional writer and get your act together blog." (Academics, I am talking to you as well. Guess what, you too are professional writers, even though you have not been taught to identify as such.) Everyone, no matter what kind of writing you do, needs to know how to write a sales letter (traditionally and limitingly known as a query letter), make an effective elevator pitch describing your work, and generally, how to act with collegiality. You may be a novel-writing or nonfiction research genius, but such marketing and people skills can still make or break your career.

Enjoy the paradigm shift. I am pretty sure it will still be here when I plug back in.

Climate: Worrying about the Weather? Join the Club

2011-07-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

As an energy and environment geek, of course I worry about the extent to which recent severe weather - increased tornados, storms, and major floods, extreme heat, extreme cold, etc. - are due to climate change. (NOAA worries, too, and Pew can tell you more.)

As a Kansan, I worry about my family and friends.

Obviously, I'm worried about Husband, who has to fight fires in this hot weather. House fires and industrial fires are bad enough, but now grass fires are becoming more of a problem. The current heat wave has dried everything out, and the recent rain seemed to evaporate as soon as it hit the ground.

However, I also worry about my friend Joe, who runs beef cattle and does fall calving. For you non-cattle folk, that means his cows are calving now, in 110 degree temperatures. That's so not good. Joe's last message to me didn't sound great.

I also worry about my friend Aaron - in his family's state of the art dairy operation, they have lost at least six cows so far due to heat (all were also calving), and milk production is probably down about 30% (click here for a recent article I wrote on the impact of heat stress on cattle).

I worry about the corn fields that I drive by every day. I worry about another cattleman down the road, whom I don't even know, who is already feeding hay to his cattle as they stand in the middle of burnt brown fields. I worry about my local eggs, especially when I open the carton and find a sad little note about how hard a time the chickens are having in this weather, and that the corn has all dried up, too, so the cows are grazing on it... they might as well.

I worry about the water level in all the local ponds. They seem a lot lower than they should be, and up here in northeast Kansas, we actually had a fair amount of rain this spring. I worry about the cracked ground, and the hard storm outside my window right now - the water is running off pretty fast, and it doesn't really seem to sink into the dirt.

And I live in the comparatively wet, eastern half of the state. This is nothing compared to the drought in western Kansas - right now, the USDA considers 66 of the 105 counties in Kansas to be drought areas. Soil temperatures are high, and soil moisture is low. I also worry about the diminishing water supply in the Ogallala Aquifer, and the sudden explosion of toxic blue-green blooms in some Kansas waterways.

Experts generally agree that we are facing a "new normal" of higher average daytime temperatures. I'm no fan of daytime temperatures over 100 degrees, with heat indexes that send them soaring even higher - who would be? - but I'm actually even more concerned that it's just not cooling off at night like it used to. The plants and animals (and people) desperately need that break. I have some climate scientist friends looking into this data trend to see to what extent it holds true for different regions of Kansas, but their research won't be out for a while.

But does it need to be? Is one more scientific study going to solve the problem? Will more knowledge force us to face the question of how much is enough?

I don't think so. Yet another scientific study (although valuable) is not going to help our society make some tough choices and start paying closer attention to the speed limit - the limits of our resources, and of the climate's ability to handle human impacts.

Burning less fossil fuels... ultimately, this is about values, not science. This is about us deciding what kind of people we are. Do we court additional risk, or do we act to prevent it?

The impacts of extreme heat that we are witnessing now are only a sample of what could occur in the future. That's not a scare tactic, it's a fact.

To me, as I look around, the cost of not acting prudently seems pretty high. Ask Joe or Aaron if that is a chance they want to take. Ask Husband - a week ago, the person he pulled out of a burning building was his own partner, who collapsed inside from the heat. Ask your own family and friends. What do they see? What do they think?

In Kansas, we have always had extreme weather.

What we really don't need is extreme climate.

(If you do want to know more about climate change research in a Midwestern state like Kansas, click here.)

Copyright Maril Hazlett, 2011.

Energy: Wait - where's the most valuable wind in Kansas?

2011-07-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

Red is good - very good. Blue is even better. WHOOSH.

Where is the most valuable wind in Kansas?

That is not supposed to be a tough question. If it blows hard, it blows good, and that's that. Based on this criteria, everyone involved in the Kansas energy scene can instantly tell you that the most consistent, high-producing Class 5 wind resources are found primarily in western Kansas.

We've all seen the maps (for a high quality .pdf of the wind density map at right, click here). All the wind developers are in western Kansas. All the transmission developers are in Western Kansas. This must therefore be the most valuable wind.

Husband teaching ropes rescue at CCCC in Concordia.

However. Every time I have had a conversation lately about the Kansas wind resource - on Twitter, in person, wherever - I keep wanting to put an asterisk by my answer and qualify the statement. Yes, the best winds are in western Kansas. No, comparatively, the winds in eastern Kansas are not as strong (although they are better than Missouri).*

* At least, as far as we know now. And the biggest winds might not always mean the best winds.

Don't scoff, listen. (And I am not just writing this because, as I sit in my office in northeast Kansas, which supposedly has poor wind, the screen just blew off my second floor window. During an extreme heat wave, mind you. When supposedly the wind doesn't blow much. Yeah.)

Remember two important things:

Our knowledge of Kansas wind (or any wind) is only as good as our ability to assess the resource. From recent interviews with NOAA scientists, I can tell you that we are actually only at the beginning stages of understanding wind. Surprisingly we actually have very little wind knowledge right now - but assessment techniques are rapidly improving and in all likelihood, an entirely new resource landscape will unroll before us over the next ten years.

We might see new winds where we missed them before. We might see gaps where we thought there was reliability. Also, we currently think about wind as a standalone resource, but as knowledge of wind and solar resource relationships grows, that will change, too. Sites might be evaluated in terms of co-resources, both wind and solar potential (or even hydro, although obviously not in western Kansas). These shifts will change perceptions of resource value.
Our ability to harvest - to gain value - from the resource changes with improvements in technology. When historians of technology look back fifty years from now, they will likely see that our current wind technologies are very, very transitional. They are helping us bridge the gap between an old energy economy and a new one, and as far as scale and infrastructure, right now they look a lot more like the old world than new.

However, changes in harvest technologies - ie, changes in gearboxes and turbine design - might open up whole new opportunities. Those turbines might turn out to be cheaper. They might serve as the basis for whole new wind farm designs. They might make us reconsider what is a valuable, economical wind resource.

I am not suggesting that conventional wisdom about Kansas wind will change immediately, or even in ten years. I do bet you, however, that it does change.

And that change might happen sooner than you think.

Writing: How to Survive Deadlines

2011-07-13T18:41:00.000-07:00

Since I am currently on deadline, naturally it made sense to take a break and write this post.

Hang in there. It's just a deadline.

Taking a break is one thing. Missing a deadline is another. I don't allow myself to miss deadlines unless hospitalization is involved. When you meet deadlines for a living, missing one starts a domino effect. It's not cool to mess with clients like that - or publishers and agents, I would assume, and I soon intend to head my writing in their direction.

I read in an agent's blog recently that some writers go into hiding when they are about to miss a deadline. Hiding is an option?! I did not know that.

Are you too on deadline? Never fear, here are some helpful tips.

Break it down.
If your To Do list only reads "finish article!" (or finish book, finish paper, etc.) - that's a mistake. First, break the task down into a project list of smaller bits, with the estimated time for completion. Ie, revise Chapter Four (three hours). Write conclusion (two hours). Edit footnotes (potentially the rest of your life, go hire a copyeditor instead). You get the idea.

Next, keep a daily To Do list. Limit it to three items from the project To Do list. More will be stressful.

Keep a log.
For however many days (or hours, or minutes) you have left, start logging time spent. Log your email time, your social media time, your actual writing time, etc. Be honest. Your time is valuable. Don't waste it.

Here is where freelancers have an advantage over writers with day jobs - our writing has an hourly rate tagged on it. I know exactly how much I am worth per hour of a certain task. If I am not producing at that level for myself, then I might as well go do it for someone else, because there is always work waiting.

Turn off the noise.
Blogs, email, Twitter, Facebook, your social media drug of choice - turn it off. There is a time and a place for that stuff and meeting a deadline is not it. Get Anti-Social (which I read about on Michael Hyatt's blog), an app that will turn off your social media access for certain times of the day.

When they come up with a similar app for limiting toddlers' meltdown moments, I will be all over it. That would be very helpful.

Take a break.Every 45 minutes, get up and stretch. Every three hours, get up and take a walk. Drink water. Eat healthy food. Set aside fifteen minutes to text family and friends. If you handle pressure like a normal, healthy person, then you will be able to produce 10-12 hours of high quality work per day while on deadline.

If you default to the Cheetos- and caffeine-fueled crouch at your monitor, if you treat deadlines as an excuse to blow your stack all over your nearest and dearest... well, good luck with the fallout, and you probably won't make your deadline anyway. You will also get in only about 4-5 quality hours. The rest of the time, you will just be creating disasters on the page (or in your life) that you or someone else is going to have to go back and sort out.

*********************

Do I actually follow my own advice? Yes, I do now, but I'll admit it took me years. Writing a dissertation was the first big project to knock some sense into me regarding time (and emotional) management. Writing for a living was the second, especially back when my clients were mostly nonprofits. Wasting anyone's money is a bad thing, but wasting their money is unconscionable.

Good luck with the deadlines!

Silly: Presenting... well, presenting.

2011-07-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

The sculpture in downtown Lawrence, Kansas, known to Toddler as "HORSIE BALLSSSSSS!"

She prefers to screech this in glee, at the top of her lungs, when lots and lots of people are nearby. For maximum effect.

Don't laugh.

Energy: Lighten Up on CFL and Incandescent Bulb Conspiracy Theories

2011-07-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

Normally I like conspiracy theories, especially anti-government ones. They give me something to brood over when I am sitting on my front porch with my shotgun across my knees, chewing on a piece of straw.

Darn. I could have sworn... (photo: interweb)

However - now the guys in black helicopters want to take our lightbulbs away? Really? The Bulb Act is an attempt to repeal the 2007 lighting legislation passed under George Bush (Note: Not Obama). There is a major misconception that the 2007 legislation means that incandescent lights will now be banned and that commandos will storm your home, forcing you at gunpoint to switch to over to compact florescent lightbulbs (CFLs).

I have to call, er, bullhonkey on this one. Lighten up, people. Allow me to shed some light. Where the sun... wait, not that one.

Here's the story, according to EnergyStar: In 2007, President George Bush signed a bill requiring all lightbulbs to use 30% less energy by 2012 and 70% less by 2020. Only sales of new bulbs are subject to this law. The new requirements will be phased in gradually. Many incandescent bulbs are exempt, such as three-way bulbs, bug and plant lights, and specialty lights.

Can't we all just get along?

The legislation does not specifically prohibit the use of incandescents, nor does it require the use of CFLs. Halogen and LED lights meet the efficiency requirement, and recent technology developments should soon bring down their cost. Manufacturers of incandescents are also improving their bulbs’ efficiency by as much as 30%.

Feel free to contact your congressional representative and share your thoughts on how they should vote on the Bulb Act.

And here’s the real story on EnergyStar qualified CFLs.

CFLs cost more up front to buy, but they cost less to operate.
Most CFLs range in cost from $2 to $15. However, since CFLs use 75% less energy than a traditional incandescent lightbulb, CFLs save you more than $30 on your total electricity bill by lasting up to ten times as long. (Today’s incandescent bulbs use only 10% of the electricity they draw to generate light. The other 90% is lost as waste heat.) Lighting costs make up approximately 20% of the average household energy bill, so CFL savings soon add up.

Don’t spend a bundle – gradually replace CFLs in your most-used fixtures first.
CFLs are most cost-efficient when replacing an incandescent bulb that is used least two hours a day – a front porch light, kitchen lighting, etc. However, CFLs are sensitive to heat, humidity, and extreme temperatures. Unless otherwise noted on the package, they should not be used in enclosed fixtures. Using CFLs in bathroom fixtures will likely shorten their lifespan.

CFLs should turn on immediately, but most do take time to warm up to full strength.
EnergyStar guarantees that a qualified CFL will turn on in under one second, and reach full strength within three minutes.

Don't hate me because I'm green.

CFLs come in different color ranges, the same as incandescent bulbs.
To purchase a CFL in the same warm, “soft” white color range as most incandescent bulbs, look for a low correlated color temperature (CCT) number such as 2700-3000K. The higher the number, the more blue (and the less warm) the light.

CFLs contain a very small amount of mercury, so please recycle them if possible.
CFLs contain approximately 1-4 milligrams of mercury in the glass tubing. By comparison, older thermometers contain 500 milligrams. Burning CFLs does not release mercury into the environment, and recycling the bulbs allows the mercury to be re-used. You can recycle CFLs at several major retailers, including Ace Hardware, Home Depot, and Lowes. If you don’t have access to one of these outlets, check with your local waste disposal authorities.

If you break a CFL, use these basic clean-up precautions.
Breaking the tubes in a CFL bulb releases mercury vapor into the air. For cleanup, first have people and pets leave the room. Next, open windows and shut off heating or cooling systems, then clean up the broken bulb. Place all bulb fragments and cleanup materials into a sealed container. Last, put the sealed container outside until you can make arrangements for safe disposal. For more information, see epa.gov/cflcleanup.

More CFL facts:

You can turn CFLs on and off regularly, just like an incandescent. However, doing it too often will shorten the lifespan of the bulb. CFLs are best used in fixtures that will be on for at least fifteen minutes.
Manufacturers also design CFLs for many specialty uses, such as recessed lights, dimmer switches, three-way lights, outdoors lights, floodlights, track lights, etc.
If your CFL hums or buzzes, this is likely a sign of a manufacturing defect in the ballast section of the bulb. EnergyStar qualified CFLs are covered by a two year limited warranty.
Most CFLs are not designed to handle deviations in voltage, so they should not be used in applications that require electronic controls (such as motion sensors).
If your EnergyStar qualified CFL burns out early, you might be entitled to a refund or replacement. Check the manufacturer’s name on the base of the bulb, then contact customer service through their website.

Misc: Cleaning up Tabs (Book Design, Cool Science Books, etc.)

2011-07-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

Bounty! Yes, there was cobbler.

"Your last few entries sound a little psycho," a friend emailed me, along with a link to this venal food sin (click if you dare - and some of my readers, Dad, should not). He followed it with an implicit suggestion that I down a little tequila and chill.

Tequila. That would really help me keep track of Toddler, my clients, and Husband's U joints on the truck.

However, the tide has begun to turn. (1) I figured out exactly how to cut those 1,500 words, (2) I made all deadlines in lovely shape, (3) my clients seem to be leaping into sparkly wonderful ventures and I am honored to accompany them on their journeys, (4) I got the blueberries, raspberries, sweet corn, kale, broccoli, and green beans all frozen, love my FoodSaver, and (5) two speaking engagements popped up for next fall and spring, and I am quite excited about the topics and other presenters.

Who needs tequila. I have frozen blueberries.

I do need to close some browser tabs. A few of the highlights:

Really dug this Harvard Biz Review article - "Before You Make That Big Decision... "
If you are a nontraditional scholar like myself (Independent Scholar? WTHeck does that mean? I have never understood that phrase), or any kind of scholar who has something to offer outside the normal tenure track publishing venues, check out Press Forward, a new venture from the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.
In another life, I might have been a book designer. If I had a spatial clue. Found a wonderful new blog, though - A New Kind of Book, basically a primer to the design potential of digital books.
The Museum of Science in Boston has a book club for folks interested in science and technology - the list looks weird, because it goes from 2005 at the top to 2011 at the bottom, but scroll down, and read UP the page. Such cool stuff. I am now daydreaming about having more time to read.
And then I had this tab open, but everyone reading this blog already owns a Remington 870, right? So you don't need to read any reviews. Dad, I thought you might like this link anyway.

BTW, my deadline calendar is nicely solid through the end of August now. I maybe could fit in a few editing projects into the cracks. If anyone needs to jump on the calendar, let's talk. I have some openings around the beginning of September.

Writing: When the Editor Gets Edited (and Read)

2011-07-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

I'm just gonna say it - without a conclusion or endnotes, my current project already has 8,500 words.

However, I only need 7,000 words. At most.

My great-greats. They would man up and cut 1,500 extra words.

Yeah.

Naturally, deadlines are looming. The article goes to readers first, then to the editor I am using to save me from myself before I send the article to the series editor. (Yes, it's okay for editors like me to use other editors on our personal work. I happen to stink at editing my own projects). At some mysterious point the series editor will send the article to the press editor. Revisions can and will happen all along the line, and eventually, this thing will get copyedited, too.

That is all expected. The one thing I can't do, though, is to take the weenie way out. I can't force anyone else to make these cuts for me.

I have been that person. I have had that editing responsibility dumped on me. I don't recall that I felt very kind as a result. I may not have reacted very well. One way or another, I came up with a mantra - no one is so cool that they get to mess with a word limit.

So now, one way or another, I have to eat my words.

Of course - because this article is distilled from a longer piece meant to turn into a book - I have already eaten more than 10,000 of them. Yep. Not kidding. (I started to write the article as a precis for the book, but I ended up writing a chunk of the book instead. What can I say, I was afraid that if I shut off the faucet, I might not get it turned on again.) And when I do get back to the book, I will be elated to have almost 20,000 words to play with.

But, at the moment, I have to %^@^%@! cut 1,500 $&*#!^) words.

Garden: Ssssnake Gets Ssstuck

2011-07-01T20:15:00.001-07:00

I'd post this in Parseltongue but I'm not sure how - check out this poor blacksnake. He went out, grabbed a bite to eat, had a bit more mouse than he should, then couldn't fit back inside when he returned home. Photo credit: My mom. He lives under her front door.

Blacksnake. Yep, that's regional spelling. Whitesnake is totally different.

- Posted from phone

Misc: Full Circles and Loose Ends

2011-06-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

No blogs lately, but I do have probably five gallons of raspberries frozen so far. Yay! Plus planning on feeding family and friends some sort of raspberry, blueberry, and chocolate concoction for 4 July. Which I had forgotten was on Monday. Gonna be a hot one.

When Kansas gets too muggy and buggy, I think of a Colorado cabin... pic c. 1955

Did you know that Oxford University just dumped the serial comma (and did you know that I just used one above, to separate "blueberry" from "and")? Nothing but trouble can come from that decision. Grammar as we know it will fall apart and if grammar goes, it will be dogs and cats sleeping in the same hairy dogbed. Wait, that's already happened at our house. Ok then.

Bathroom remodel is on home stretch, so I rescheduled a few appointments in order to get Toddler and myself out of the house this a.m. so Husband could maintain his sanity and install the sink. We went to Books and Babies at the library, which is really Toddler's home away from home. We park in the same place every time, and the same homeless guy is sitting in the same place in the shade, sipping his coffee.

I don't usually have moments like this. Psychic moments, for lack of a better word. (Maybe just an overactive imagination.) Still, this morning as I pulled Toddler from her car seat I looked at the homeless man and all of a sudden, I just knew it - he is a father. He has a daughter. She misses him, she can't find him, she's desperate.

But then, what do you say?

When we walked by him, he and I said hello, as usual. This time I also said to Toddler, "wave, honey." She did, and she also smiled at him.

I hope he watched us till we walked in to the library. And I hope. I hope.

Writing: Cool Copy-Editing quote!

2011-06-23T06:50:00.000-07:00

The following quote is from the Copyediting blog. Admission: I have pretty much cherrypicked these lines out of context, but. It was important!

... After all, it’s just a matter of style, not a matter of right or wrong. As long as the style supports the meaning of the text and is applied consistently, it doesn’t matter which way you go.

Sometimes... that's all it is. Sometimes choices in punctuation (gasp!) or language are indeed just a matter of style, and not a matter of right or wrong. Common sense, forest versus the trees, etc. It is not necessary to automatically dig in and hunker down over every single technicality. Just be consistent in your choices, and honor the overall meaning of the text.

Very nice.

(And yes, I deliberately split that infinitive.)

Writing: Six Questions Nonprofits Should Ask Before Hiring Grantwriters

2011-06-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

Long long ago, in a life far away, I once was a freelance grantwriter. I'm not sure if it was me who did well, or if it was just the economy doing well, but the results were quite satisfactory.

And now, eons later and with the economy in much different shape (not to mention, the balance sheets of the nonprofit foundations), I am starting to get a lot of requests again for help in writing grants.

It is not that I am saying no to these opportunities. Not precisely. However, I would be derelict if I did not express a few caveats first, before saying yes. Nonprofits have such limited resources, and so many people and causes need direct services right now - I can't bear to think of anyone squandering precious dollars on a grantwriter if this is not the absolutely right decision for your organization.

However, also note I've been out of the field for a while. Evaluate my advice accordingly, and toss it if you wish. I'm still great for editing grant proposals, and I will occasionally write one, but I no longer have the street cred to give any decent consulting advice.

Also, my background with grantwriting is pretty specific - I most often worked with organizations whose budgets were $250K or less. The little guys. I also tend to run screaming from government grants because I hate them. So my cautions below have limitations.

Question 1. Before you even consider hiring a grantwriter, are the rest of your marketing materials in good shape?

Grants are read by a specific, limited audience – foundations. However, a nonprofit’s press kits, websites, online profiles, etc., have much bigger audiences - stakeholders and potential donors, as well as foundations. Also, imagine a funder’s reaction when they read a stellar grant application, then decide to go check out the organization’s website or Guidestar profile… and the website copy tells a different (perhaps older and outdated) story about your programs than the grant did. Would you fund these people?

What I tend to think nonprofits need are not grantwriters, but writers, period, experts who can go over marketing materials and make them shine. Usually, whatever staff member is currently writing your funding applications can also take some of that new marketing language and selectively re-use it in a grant. Alternatively, a grantwriter can also look over some of your existing grant language and give you some edits and pointers.

Question 2. Grants - are you SURE?

Grants are a necessary evil. However, it is not wise for your organization to become too dependent on them. Grants simply take too much time to apply for and pursue, and they will suck away your resources from providing services. Maybe the money for a grantwriter is better spent on a fundraiser or generating additional income streams.

Nor are grants a magic bullet. If your organization is foundering financially or in terms of leadership, grants will not save you. In fact, they will likely make your problems worse by co-opting your programs. All too often, the temptation is for the nonprofit to warp their programming to fit the foundation’s funding requirements. If the grantwriter is not from your staff, they might not catch this happening and be able to call you on it. Warps are bad. If you default into this type of grantwriting strategy, your organization will simply limp along, die, or become so dysfunctional that you can't effectively provide services.

Also, some grants just aren’t worth it. My personal pet peeve are grants for less than $10K that specifically target small, grassroots organizations with few resources – yet the foundation applications have complex, unique questions would take a professional grantwriter probably twenty hours to answer well (and on top of that, the foundations do not allow for indirect expenses in the grant budget). I have seen applications for hundreds of thousands of dollars that take less paperwork than applications for under $20K. This is not just.

Last but not least, the grant reporting… that requires work, too. You can’t just take people’s money and not tell them (accurately!) how you spent it. Reporting takes time and effort.

Question 3. Is it really the writing?

I'd love to tell you that beautifully written grants will get you the money every time. Ha. That is a complete and utter crock. RELATIONSHIPS GET THE GRANTS. If you do not have an executive director or development director who is willing to work the grant contact and build a relationship with the foundation, then don't bother applying. I have seen crap writing win grants due to strong pre-existing relationships. I have seen brilliant but un-connected applications get short shrift. It is the way of the world, grasshopper.

Question 4. Is the money better spent on a fundraiser?

Grants are restricted funds, and you have to report on their expenditures (which can increase your overhead in all sorts of nasty hidden ways, especially for government grants). The proceedings of fundraising are usually not restricted, and can be used on a wider variety of projects and program needs, including overhead expenses.

Enough said.

Question 5. Are your financials in good shape?

Unless your annual reports shine, unless your accounting system is in order, unless your 990s are up to date, unless you are able to afford (or plan to afford) an audit, forget the grantwriter. You have other priorities.

Question 6. Do you have a strategic plan that includes capacity building?

Applying for grants should not be a Hail Mary. It should be part of an overall funding strategy that you have developed to support your programming. Unless you have a strategic plan, with buy in from both board and staff, you will not do a good job of evaluating what grants to apply for. Perhaps one section of your programming could do very well depending on grants alone. Perhaps another is completely unfundable through grants, and you should come up with other ideas.

If you don't have a plan, you are just a lost soul running around like a chicken with your head cut off, desperately rewriting every grant application from scratch in a panicked effort to please people. Would you date like this? I should hope not. Don't write grants like this, either.

I should be able to think of more questions... but, like I said, I've been out of the field for a while. And I've run out of steam, too, my apologies for being a bit curmudgeonly.

I love nonprofits. I believe with all my heart in nonprofits. I know the pressures on you folks are even worse during these tough economic times, but please don't hire a grantwriter until you can at least answer these questions.

And if you do answer the questions well, then I wish you the best of luck in finding a grantwriter and success in making your applications, and I thank you for everything that you do.

(Also, if you do hire a grantwriter, you will of course ask for writing samples, track record, and recommendations, right? Right! Which is probably another entire blog post.)

Misc Storylines: Remodels and Raspberries, a little bit of wind and coal and climate

2011-06-21T19:11:00.000-07:00

No recent blog posts, sorry. Reasons: (1) raspberries, yay, and (2) wasps, boo. To be more specific, three wasp stings on my right hand and two on my left. Not easy to type, and I've had a lot to do at the day job lately. My hands did swell up, and they did hurt (still do), but it could have been worse, too.

Coulda been ground hornets.

(And yes, I got the stings while picking at dusk in the raspberries. I'm probably also lucky a copperhead didn't come find me.)

Raspberry status. We (well, Husband, his hands work better than mine right now) have frozen maybe two gallons so far. That's nothing. If the weather holds, I have high hopes. I'm also going to get a new jelly roll pan to use up all last year's preserves, because even though we don't can anymore, all our friends do, and they also have blackberries and peaches coming as well. Toddler can be on a natural sugar high all year round.

Remodel status. There is a shower! Two defective shower heads later. Argh, American Standard, you failed us. But the Moen is holding up nicely. Tile is progressing as I speak. The only hold-up is me, because I have not yet decided on a sink or countertop. The price per square foot of natural materials countertops kind of makes my stomach hurt, so I haven't gotten to it yet.

The other hold up was also me, I am afraid - I hated the color I picked for the walls. This is pretty normal, Husband was not surprised. He will just be happy if I only change colors once, I think.

News updates. Many of you know that I worked in the Kansas energy policy field pre-Toddler, and was involved with the Sunflower coal plant air permit issue on and off for a while. A recent news article you might be interested in:

Karen Dillon, KCStar, Kansas agency, utility worked closely on permit for plant.

Hundreds of emails document that officials of a Kansas power plant enjoyed a cozy relationship with the Kansas regulators who issued them a building permit in December.

The Sunflower coal-fired power plant already had been controversial, with critics claiming it is unneeded and would pollute the air. So the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) had promised an impartial review of the permit.

But during the months the department was writing the 275-page permit — which will determine emissions releases for years to come — staffers were in almost daily contact with Sunflower Electric Power Corp. officials, The Kansas City Star has found.

In fact, the relationship was so close that the department allowed Sunflower to respond to questions from the public and then passed some of the answers off as their own. Those questions and answers were supposed to help shape the permit’s requirements. (click here to read more.)

Wind-related. I haven't been posting any of my wind articles lately - there are two more recent ones in NAWindpower, but access is restricted to the print edition. So... to please my editor, here is where I tell you to subscribe. Subscribe! But one was a profile on Kansas wind development - essentially, the future is so bright, we need to wear shades. The other involved reanalysis models, which are very, very cool.

Climate. No link for this one, just an observation. Many members of the (print) media apparently heard the ah, constructive criticism that has been flying around lately regarding messaging on climate change. With all the extreme weather recently, many reporters have been super-careful about NOT drawing clear scientific links with climate change and tornados, etc.

So... what am I hearing on the lips of friends and neighbors lately? "All this weather. It's so different. I think it's because we're messing with the weather."

Takeaway: Facts. Observation. Experience. Interpretation is not just for experts anymore (not that it ever was). If you are an expert, please adjust accordingly.

Misc: The Great Cow Hunt

2011-06-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, my neighbor moved his cows over to their summer pasture. Toddler was very sad when this happened. Every time we drive by the old winter pasture, she says wistfully - "Moomoos? Mama moomoos? Baby moomoos?"

So today we went the long way home. Found 'em.

The babies are getting big!

In the back seat, there was much rejoicing. She said hi to them and chatted.

"You can't see me behind this fence post, can you? I'm a tricky cow."

I said, "Honey, you know we eat cows, right?"

Garden: Sick of My Raspberries Yet? You Will Be Soon.

2011-06-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

Please note, on the following picture, the current garden ratio of ripe to unripe raspberries. (NOM.)

Succulent, delicious, with just a little tang - and only getting started.

Excitingly (or frighteningly, depends on your perspective), this ratio is also roughly equivalent to the ratio of finished to unfinished projects that are currently ripening on my desktop.

Writing: Not a Loss of Income, but a Gain of Opportunity

2011-06-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

When a client canceled a project on me earlier this week, my first thought was not "yay, more time for working on one of three manuscripts!" My first thought was "I really need to start charging people to hold a place on my deadline calendar."
Hang on, wait.

Not that charging this fee (or a kill fee, Maril, get some business sense) isn't a good idea. Plenty of other freelancers do it, and practically, I probably should. Someone else could have used the space that is now going empty. Someone still could, actually. I could pick up the phone...

... Or - radical concept - I could use this free time to work on my own writing.

Imagine that.

Project management is by no means new to me. Flexibility, though, kind of is. As a longtime blogger and professional writer, I'm used to turning creativity on and off at the drop of a hat. Or so I thought. Turns out, though, I could use a bit more spontaneity, creativity, and risk-taking in my personal writing behavior. Instead, I've been letting my Capricorn-y schedule obsessions slide me ever so gently off balance.

I think I've been working harder on my clients' work than on my own.

And if you are one of my clients, you are thinking "darn straight." Of course! :) Of course. But if you want my brain to stay sharp for you, then you have to consider - I do need a little bit of time to write crazy stuff for me, too.

First, to get it out of my system so I don't accidentally do anything idiotic on your work. Second, because it keeps me a lot fresher. Come on, you know you like fresh.

Believe it or not, my brain just shot out a roadkill joke right about there, but thank heavens I filtered it. And that does it for sure. I'm going to take a wee little bit of time this week, in order to meet one of my own deadlines.

Just a few hours. No one will miss it.

Misc: Report! Raspberries, Saddle Soap, Risk

2011-06-13T06:53:00.000-07:00

Lovely weekend at home. We are one p-trap away from having a shower again *happydance* and whew. I have purposefully not counted the days.

Giddyup!

Raspberries. Raspberries! We are about to be awash, give it three days, but right now the perfect amount is trickling in. Enough to snack on after walk, enough to pick for breakfast. Past this will come the freezing and argh, the jamming. Which I used to love but I somehow lost the joy after Toddler. Small children and boiling hot syrup in the same house give me the cold chills.

Speaking of Toddler. Husband and I are usually wildly trading her off during the week, in order to fit around our work schedules. The past two days en famille, I've had a chance to check out parenting on the other side. One of his tricks, I'm in awe: Husband simply booms "(Toddler/ insert her real name here) - REPORT TO DIAPER TABLE. CLEAN DIPEY. NOW." Rarely, he has to add - "MOVE IT."

Instantly, Toddler drops whatever she is doing, and happily, obediently, heads off at a fast trot to the changing table. Leaving me with my jaw a-drop, wondering, how the **** did he do that?

I'm just not that parent. I tried. I can't even say "Report!" with a straight face, let alone speak in capital letters. Probably that's key to the magic. I tend to be very soft-voiced. Except if she gets anywhere near the jam.

Culinary achievements this weekend: Brownie ice cream cake, and, a chicken. Which I cooked in the crock pot. Easiest to do the chicken and the broth at same time, I've found. Made egg salad, too, which Husband already devoured. The chicken will appear in various dinners for the next few days, one of which must include kale, which I bought because it looked very pretty. Husband and Toddler will remember the brownie ice cream cake and then deal. More than one way to handle nutrition.

Saddles. Went into Dad's tack room last week, and realized that I have at least three saddles that need a complete overhaul before we can start using them again. The house now smells like saddle soap and leather. Mold is a slight problem, but it seems to be coming off alright. I hope. Husband appears to think he would prefer Toddler learning to ride on a saddle, versus bareback. I can't remember how I learned myself. I think I went through a long bareback phase, but probably that was after age five or so. I was allowed to ride by myself by age eight, which seems insane to me now since we didn't even use helmets back then. We just got off the schoolbus, went and grabbed a hackamore, scrambled on, yelled yee-haw and that was it. At any rate, I lived to tell the tale.

Didn't mention any of that to Husband. Risk-taking is perfectly fine for him, but I sense he has an adjustment period ahead before he can deal with that behavior in his daughter. Last night when we were snuggling on the couch before bed, each with our print of choice (me a book, him something tool-related), I asked him if the "REPORT!" always works.

"Nah," he said. "The other day she looked me right in the eye, smiled, and said 'no, bye bye.'And she's my kid, I can't exactly kick her off my obstacle course."

Ha. Ok. We will just see about the bareback.

Genius: The Backfire Effect - from You Are Not So Smart

2011-06-10T11:49:00.000-07:00

And to think, I linked to that blog just yesterday. I must have felt a ripple in the force.

This kind of material - this is what can happen when an expert can actually write and communicate WELL. Read the entire Backfire Effect entry here, or simply sample my cherrypicked quotes (and FYI, I use ellipses - ... - to indicate skips in the original text):

The Misconception: When your beliefs are challenged with facts, you alter your opinions and incorporate the new information into your thinking.

The Truth: When your beliefs are challenged by contradictory evidence, your beliefs get stronger...

.... Once something is added to your collection of beliefs, you protect it from harm. You do it instinctively and unconsciously when confronted with attitude-inconsistent information. Just as confirmation bias shields you when you actively seek information, the backfire effect defends you when the information seeks you, when it blindsides you. Coming or going, you stick to your beliefs instead of questioning them. When someone tries to correct you, tries to dilute your misconceptions, it backfires and strengthens them instead. Over time, the backfire effect helps make you less skeptical of those things which allow you to continue seeing your beliefs and attitudes as true and proper.

As a part-time conspiracy theorist (some days), I had to admit that I too do the following. I am not a birther, but just try to talk to me about the moon landing. Go ahead.

... This is why the one in four Americans who now believes Barack Obama was not born in the United States will never be satisfied with any amount of evidence put forth suggesting otherwise. When the Obama administration released his long-form birth certificate in April of 2011, the reaction from birthers was as the backfire effect predicts. They scrutinized the timing, the appearance, the format – they gathered together online and mocked it. They became even more certain of their beliefs than before. The same has been and will forever be true for any conspiracy theory or fringe belief. Contradictory evidence strengthens the position of the believer. It as seen as part of the conspiracy, and missing evidence is dismissed as part of the cover-up.

And then, my favorite - especially as a former climate change educator (much like a sex educator, but worse. At least in Kansas).

What should be evident from the studies on the backfire effect is you can never win an argument online. When you start to pull out facts and figures, hyperlinks and quotes, you are actually making the opponent feel as though they are even more sure of their position than before you started the debate. As they match your fervor, the same thing happens in your skull. The backfire effect pushes both of you deeper into your original beliefs.

Before ANYONE starts feeling superior, think a second - you too probably do this. This is basic human wiring. Politics - all kinds of politics - is just a surface affect of the backfire effect. Yeah. And I do believe I used those words correctly.

Here is where it gets a little (more) morose and dystopic:

As social media and advertising progresses, confirmation bias and the backfire effect will become more and more difficult to overcome. You will have more opportunities to pick and choose the kind of information which gets into your head along with the kinds of outlets you trust to give you that information. In addition, advertisers will continue to adapt, not only generating ads based on what they know about you, but creating advertising strategies on the fly based on what has and has not worked on you so far. The media of the future may be delivered based not only on your preferences, but on how you vote, where you grew up, your mood, the time of day or year – every element of you which can be quantified. In a world where everything comes to you on demand, your beliefs may never be challenged.

And if I spent all my time online, I would indeed worry about that. However, social media seems for many people to be a substitute for human contact - and whether virtual or in person, most folks tend to prefer to hang out with people who see the world as they do, anyway. So while I see the potential here, I'm not overcome.

Still, to sum up:

As information technology progresses, the behaviors you are most likely to engage in when it comes to belief, dogma, politics and ideology seem to remain fixed. In a world blossoming with new knowledge, burgeoning with scientific insights into every element of the human experience, like most people, you still pick and choose what to accept even when it comes out of a lab and is based on 100 years of research.

Isn't this stuff cool? Don't you love it? At the same time you kind of want to bang your head against a wall?

Silly: Toddler gets political

2011-06-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

... and decides to hold a "Tea Potty." (I know, I know, that's bad. I apologize.)

I don't know what her tea set did to deserve this...

For those of you who are not or have not recently been the parent of a toddler, that receptacle is a yeah.

Home: Remodeling the Bathroom, Part III - going for it

2011-06-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

Originally, the shower was to be replaced (tough enough, in a one bathroom home) - but, why stop there? (Click here for Part I and Part II of the remodel.)


Cooling off in the lily pond is always another option.

We gutted it.

I am a full supporter of this insanity. I think the original vision of stopping with the shower remodel was my bad idea. We have to get to the rest of it eventually, and who would want to go through this twice? Husband went along with the bad idea because, well, no smart man tells his wife - at least not this wife - that she has to be without either a shower, toilet, or make-up mirror for the better part of three weeks.

No. You let her figure that out for herself.

During the past seven days, the amazing man I married has moved stud walls, plumbing, and wiring. He's tiled and grouted, trimmed out the shower plumbing, re-sheetrocked, and is now doing a new subfloor. All just in time to... go back on shift at the fire station.

So, obvious questions arise about the interim. Toilet? Answer: We had the option to install one downstairs and amidst the rest of the remodel drama, Husband did that, too. Problem solved. Bathroom sink? Use the kitchen sink. Shower?

Yes. Well. We are still hosing down in what is technically the front yard.

And again, it's no big deal. I've been remembering a recent tweet by @roseannecash. Her plane was late, her baggage was lost, and in a hour she had to go on stage and perform in the clothes and makeup she'd been wearing all day. She tweeted something to the effect of: “I could kill myself, or I could remember that these are all First World problems.”

Yep. Three weeks without a completely working bathroom is definitely just a First World problem. Consider - I have clean water that comes to my house in a fairly new pipe, I have a working (fingers crossed) septic system that takes the dirty water away, and I also have bodies of water all around me that are surprisingly clean, especially considering the amount of ag run-off in this area. (Congrats to the farmers of Jeff County for being good stewards.)

So, it turns out that bathing in the front yard is quite a peaceful and relaxing experience, as long as no snakes fall out of the trees. There's very little traffic on our road, the driveway is long and full of crunchy gravel (and if you step off, there's poison ivy, ticks, and more snakes, so have fun with that). Husband backs up the truck to create a privacy screen, fills up a big huge tub with warm water for me, puts out the soap, and, actually, I really like it. Sure, someone could come along, but they'd also have to get past all the dogs and guns first.

Joke.

Kind of.

Are you really going to mess with a woman who hasn't had a shower?

Silly: The Embarassing Saga of the Glasses

2011-06-05T07:07:00.000-07:00

I like to think that my rational brain is in full control of my assessments, decisions, and actions. Right. Let me tell you a story:

My (former) sunglasses were black Raybans. I'd had them almost as long as I've been married, ie, eons. No one but me could probably hold on to one pair of sunglasses for that length of time. I had coddled and cosseted them - still in their original case - and they showed a minimum of scratches. I wore them every day.

About a month ago, I leaned over to pick up Toddler and the glasses slipped from the top of my head, fell on a tile floor, and shattered. Damn. Well, get a grip, woman. They're sunglasses. Quit whining and buy some more. I did. Did you know that the price of quality sunglasses has gone up a bit over the past fifteen years? DAMN.

Naturally, it only took about two weeks for me to lose this pair. Except it's not that simple. My Revos are gone, but in their shiny new case has mysteriously appeared a battered pair of Steve Madden's (who is that?). In tortoiseshell, yuck. The shape is almost identical to the Revos so I didn't notice for a while.

That's the only fact the rational brain had to work with - expensive glasses gone, junkers in their place. No idea when or how the transition took place. But here's how the animal brain proceeded to reason, without anything but emotion and circumstantial evidence to go on:

Day One - I am such a loser!!! Woe, woe, woe.

Day Two - My brother must have taken my glasses by accident and left me his junk. I text him to find out. Since he takes a whole hour to respond, and during the work day, too, this leads to -

Day Three - My brother stole my glasses on purpose and left me his junk and he LIED about it. But since I do love my brother -

Day Four - Someone else stole my glasses on purpose.

Day Five - Well, at least they left me another pair, so now I won't wreck my car when blinded by the Kansas summer sun. And I've worn the glasses often enough now that I don't really notice the scratches on the lens anymore. And while I still hate tortoiseshell (on me, it's fine for other people), the shape of the glasses is actually pretty flattering.

Day Six - Oh Lord. I stole someone's favorite glasses!!

Day Seven - Hey, it all works out. And I left them another pair.

EDIT: I should note that this post was inspired by You Are Not So Smart, a blog I have enjoyed and I am looking forward to the book. Also a big thanks to Climateer for turning me on to You Are Not So Smart (it was you, right?).

And I should add - anyone who still believes in or functions on the premise that we are all rational, prudent people whose actions are primarily dictated by logic and reason - really? Go read some Merleau-Ponty and get back to me on that. Or, hey, go watch TV.

Home: Remodeling the Bathroom, Part II - caution, nudity!

2011-06-01T19:18:00.000-07:00

Needless to say, there will be no pictures in this blog entry. Other than to demonstrate that the bathroom first looked like this:


Down to the studs. But new tub!

And now looks like this - progress!!! So pretty. Aw. In two days, too. Yes, Husband is a truly amazing man.

While the tile mortar cures, we wait to grout.

Which leads us to the nudity (again, not pictured). We like to be clean. We don't currently have a functioning shower.

We do, however, have a hose.

And, I have to say, the process of shivering naked in cold water while standing in the driveway, hopefully screened from the road by the truck, got a lot better when we attached a sprinkler to the hose. The first night, Husband simply draped the hose over the truck's rearview mirror to create an icy waterfall. (Possibly we could get more backwoods, but I hate to think how.) It quickly became clear to me that I was not man enough to let water that cold run down my body. Not for long, anyway.

The sprinkler, though, is do-able. At least it diffuses the chill. Toddler loves the sprinkler, her daddy can stand it, and her mama just wants to be clean.

Of course, we live on a lake. The water isn't warm yet... but, compared to the hose water, it really can't be that bad.

Tomorrow night, we might just go swimming instead.

Home: Remodeling the Bathroom, Part 1

2011-05-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

I titled this bathroom remodeling entry "Part I" while hoping and praying that we don't eventually make it as high as "Part LXI" or something equally horrifying. This project is technically supposed to take a week.

However, as all DIY-ers know... yeah.

To clarify: I am not in charge of this remodel. Husband is. I am the cheering section, childcare, financial project manager, and smart wife who knows when the hell to clear out of the house. Which explains why I am sitting in my office on Memorial Day, staring glumly at a computer screen. I dropped Toddler off at her Nana's, and this was the only place I had left to go. I meant to post a huge series of pictures from our Memorial Day weekend visit to Sterling, yet find that a crucial camera cable was somehow left at home.

We will pretend that is not foreshadowing. Did I also mention this is our only bathroom in the house?

Also to clarify: I will never, ever post "before" pictures of said bathroom. I don't want anyone to know I lived with that horror for five years. Originally, it was supposed to be one year, then two years, but life continually intervened (and yes, Toddler was one of those interventions. A divine one, definitely, but preemies are not low-cost babies).

So here we are in 2011. We are no better prepared to re-do the bathroom, but, sometimes you just move ahead regardless and pray God still watches over idiots.

And so far, He does.

Idiot Move #1: We have been collecting scraps of the new bathroom over the years, usually on sale. Our basement already held a vanity and sink, various light and plumbing fixtures, a really cool mirror, various trim pieces, etc.

But wait. Do I still like any of it?

Whew. After an exhaustive inventory review last night, I have concluded that the only thing I now hate and intend to sell on Craigslist is the sink, and Husband breathed huge sigh of relief. Buying ahead, you save money... but, times also change. Still, so far it has worked out.

Idiot Move #2: Notice what's missing from this list? Sure you did. BATHTUB.

A bathtub. Yes. And did you know, they are kind of heavy? And large? My bathtub plans were severely revised by Husband's limitations - ie, he is the only one working on the project, and he needs to be able to move the tub by himself because he took time off work to do this and all his friends are on shift and can't help with the install. So... I wasn't a crank about losing a dream bathtub to soak in. It's a tub. Who cares? If it holds water, then I'm good. Plus, by adjusting my attitude, I also save approximately $500.

But wait. Turns out, bathtub sizes have also changed since this bathroom was built. We have a 53 inch hole. Unless you special order (not cheap!!), standard tubs come in 60 inch lengths.

Idiot Move #3. Bam, no longer are we just ripping out a few old things and plopping in bright shiny things. Now we are ripping out a stud wall and moving plumbing. Yay. We - why am I saying we? I mean Husband (who just texted me: "No going back now. POWER!!!!!" Dude is caught up in the teardown phase). He was a painter when I met him, a plumber when I married him, and a firefighter by our first anniversary, plus he entirely remodeled our first house. He is more than capable of remodeling this bathroom.

But wait. He has a full-time job already. Wait, I more or less do, too. Wait - we also share the full-time care of Toddler since we don't have any daycare other than her loving Nana.

As Toddler would roll her eyes and say - "oh, man!!"

Idiot Move #4. I hesitate to call this an Idiot Move: (a) it is probably a smart move in the longterm, and (b) it is a move I expect Husband to make unilaterally, and smart wives do not ever refer to their husbands in less than glowing terms. Plus, (c) the move has not yet actually happened.

The Plan: We are JUST REDOING the shower this week. Shower only. That's all. Yes, we do have a new vanity, but that is supposed - supposed - to wait. Yes, we have the tiles for the new floor, yes, we have the wiring accoutrements, but all that is supposed to -

- wait. Let's recheck that text message from a man who now holds a buzzing saws-all (demo saw) in his hands, and whose wife pulled the real idiot move by leaving him alone in the house with power tools and no adult supervision.

Do you really think I am going to have any vestige of a working bathroom left when I return home? Really?

Smart Move. Two years ago, we already re-did the toilet.

Parenting: Moments When Plastic Toys Are NOT a Bad Idea (Toy Review)

2011-05-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

A long car ride with an eighteen month old in desperate need of distraction finally convinced me: Plastic toys are not all bad.

It will surprise no one that Husband and I are the kind of parents who lean toward wood toys, and who also don't tend to buy toys made in China. Kind of like religion, kind of like politics, kind of like food, we don't make a big deal about our choices and we don't judge others, but our preferences for Toddler's toys are pretty spartan. (And yes, we do realize that when she is old enough to state her own preferences, we will likely all have to compromise a bit.)

Note: Actually for use by kids as young as six months. C.Raz.Y.

In the interests of equal time, though, I did once take Toddler through the toy aisle at a large box store. The poor kid freaked out. Everything was too bright, too loud, too overstimulating. She literally had a breakdown. I did bring home a craptastic plastic dump truck for her (all in the name of being open-minded). She refused to play with it.

The interesting thing, though... Toddler does in fact play with plastic toys all the time, over at her Nana's. My mom has kept all of our old Fisher-Price toys, Star Wars action figures, etc., and all the grandkids love playing with them. However, if you compare the plastic toys of yesteryear to the plastic toys of today, the differences are enormous. In days of yore, there were less bright colors, less buttons, less noise and confusion. Plus, the plastic seems to be of a completely different type.

That did start me thinking. Like it or not, the world is full of crap, both plastic and other kinds. Sooner or later, Toddler's going to have to learn how to filter out the junk. Keeping her isolated doesn't do her any favors. I started thinking of it like immunization. If Husband and I gradually exposed Toddler to plastic toys in controlled, limited doses, then maybe that could help keep her from getting overwhelmed.

So when we were faced with a seven hour car ride to Nebraska, I took a big step - a FisherPrice(R) laptop (made in China, too). NO, NOT THAT ONE! Not the complicated one(s). I chose the simplest laptop they had... which still had about three functions too many, in the opinion of this overprotective parent.

Toddler loved the laptop. She spent hours figuring it out. First, just pushing a button, any button, was a big deal. By the ride home, she was figuring out the different combinations of settings, mouse dials, etc., to get various songs and numbers. She also had the numbers on the keyboard memorized. No, she has no real idea yet of what counting actually means, but building associations between words, numbers, colors, and shapes is not a bad idea at all. (We usually like to help her do that ourselves, but, you know, seatbelt laws.)

Getting stuck in a car seat for hours turned out to be the perfect time for Toddler to concentrate on the plastic toy, take control of its bells and whistles, and investigate. If she hadn't wanted to play with the laptop, I am sure I would have felt it whack on my shoulder, along with a fierce screech of "NO!!!"

Home now, and she could care less. The laptop is going back into the closet until another car trip. The plastic toy didn't forever corrupt her innocence; as per usual, Toddler is still all about her dolls, dump trucks, and blocks.

Blocks.

Yeah, I admit it. Some of those are plastic, too.

Hiking: How to Avoid Ticks

2011-05-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

Ha, this one is easy. In order to avoid ticks when hiking, especially in the Great Plains, here is what you do:

DON'T GO HIKING. At all. Ever. Stay inside and cling to the couch and grow large and pasty.

If that solution does not suit you, then try this instead.

Choose Appropriate Attire. Wear long sleeves, pants, and socks, and wear high-topped boots. Tuck pants into socks. (Spray bare skin first, see below).
Spray all clothing with DEET-based insect spray. Lift up your shirt, spray waistline. Etc. Ticks are most likely to crawl on you from tall grass, but they cling to low branches, too, so close your eyes and spray your head. Sorry, the hippie spray won't work, and no, not even for your kids. If your kid is under one, wait to go into tick-y places.
Go have fun and forget about the ticks.
Come back to your cabin and/or campsite and remember the ticks. The good news: Your previous precautions prevented approximately 90% of them from crawling on you. The bad news: You still have to deal with the remaining 10%.
Strip nekkid before re-entering cabin or tent. Question: Is anyone watching? Answer: Who cares!! Eeeww, ticks.
Leave clothes at door. Go shower, check for ticks in personal areas, and have a family member check you over in general. Fun for all!
Quarantine hiking clothes. Later, when you are in tick-free clothing, return to clothes pile with garbage sack. Shrieking faintly, push pile in bag. Tie it very, very tight. Throw bag in back of truck. When you get home, dump bag in the freezer (yes, the freezer) for a few hours. Remove clothes, wash.* Hot water not necessary.
Freak out anyway. Because all that probably only saved you from another 9%.

* The grammar here was so funny I decided not to edit it. Read again... yes... wait for it...

Firefighter's Wife: How Husband spent a hot, sweaty afternoon

2011-05-23T18:53:00.001-07:00

Nope, he didn't spend it like THAT. He spent it like this:

I have sent two casually cheery yet strongly suggestive texts along the lines of "wow, nice job, YOU'RE DRINKING GATORADE, RIGHT?" (It got pretty hot out today.)

Aaaand no response. He can't heed my nagging right now, he's fighting fires.

Posted from my phone

Garden: Strawberries - they're here...!

2011-05-20T19:03:00.001-07:00

Mmmmmm. Delicious. Whole family went out to berry patch for dessert. Still picked enough to have for breakfast.

- Posted from phone

Parenting: Top Five Things to Say to Your Kid Every Day

2011-05-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

"Duck! Watch out! Watch your head, baby. Big step, honey, big step. Oh dear, is that a poopy?"

Those are probably my top five. However, here is what I need to say more of:

1. "Good job!"

2. "Good try. You worked really hard. Keep trying, you'll figure it out."

3. "Thank you - I really like how you did that."

4. "Are you frustrated? Ask Mama for help."

5. "You make Mama happy. I love you."

(Aw!)

Come to think of it, I should be saying at least three of these to everyone, shouldn't I?

Parenting: Teach Your Kids about Sex and Religion, Because...

2011-05-16T11:43:00.000-07:00

Toddler now has a bible. Whoa.

... do you really want anyone else doing it? (Sex ed classes aside.) I mean, really? Do you? Shouldn't your precious little darling hear about sex and religion at home, first?

Not that you are necessarily an expert, and no, I don't want details. But. You might not have all the angles, but you do have a set of values. Without the foundation of values, when they do get the facts, those facts might not make a lot of sense.

Moralistic lecture over; justification begins. Obviously, the info has to be age-appropriate. Equally obviously, Toddler doesn't need any info on sex right now (even when a pair of robins start doing it right in front of her. True story).

But I did get her her first Bible! See picture. Aw! I have some comments on the editing and lack of women in the story, but overall, it was waaaay the best of other kid Bibles I've seen.

Husband said something like "well, now you have to find a kid's Koran, right?" And maybe some Buddhist scriptures. We are an ecumenically-minded family.

BTW, if you are ecumenical, too, PLEASE donate to the University of Kansas Ecumenical Christian Ministries. They are in the last throes of a matching funds drive that is going down to the wire.

Complicated: Old Friends Coming out of the Closet

2011-05-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

It took me, hmm, several years to read an old friend's online profile (we've been friended forever) and realize, oh! Somewhere along the line, she chose a life partner who is a woman.

Obviously I have no problem with that choice. They're both consenting adults, they're obviously quite happy (now that I actually look at her photos), they're raising wonderful offspring, they're good people. Even if they didn't meet at least two of the last three qualifications on that list, I don't consider people's sex lives to be any of my business.

Photo credit: billishirts at zazzle.com

Frankly, for my generation, having friends come out as gay is not that big a deal. I look over my cohort from grade school, junior high, and high school, and can count more than ten now living with partners of the same sex - and those are just the people I'm still somewhat in touch with. For college friends, the list of come outs is shorter (in no small part because if they were gay, many of them chose to come out then). At any rate, I don't usually find myself going, whoa! Hang on!

But I am freaking out a little with this friend, and I don't know why. It's not complicated for her, or with me and her; it's complicated because I'm not sure why, in this one case, I'm a tad gobsmacked. Maybe it's that we were close once. She made a pretty big life decision, and I totally missed it. Despite other people's sex lives being none of my business, I find myself really, really, really wanting to know how it happened. Somewhere along the line, she went from boyfriends to a girlfriend. I want to know the story!

But it's still none of my business. She and I are in touch now, but we are not even remotely close. I can't call her up and say, hey, I missed something big, please fill me in on the most private and intimate deets of your personal life.

Being polite is killing me. To distract myself, I've been going over my memories of her personality, and constructing my own stories just to help fill in the blanks.

Here's what I remember: She was (is) fabulously beautiful, and one of the most pragmatic, grounded, competent people I have ever met. She'd grown up a practical person in a world full of love, but also full of crazy, and she had a dry sense of humor about the experience. She treated everyone with respect. She always seemed to me to be very self-aware. You definitely couldn't fool her.

I guess that one of the differences between then and now is that while most people's sex lives are not your business, your friends' sex lives usually are. At least to some extent. If she was thinking about both guys and girls when I knew her, then I hope I never did or said anything, ever, to make her feel like she couldn't tell me about it. Duh, this is not about me. Still, it made me think about the kind of messages we send to other people, messages we aren't even aware of. And I hope I didn't send anything that might have made her journey more difficult. That's been bugging me.

But maybe her journey wasn't that difficult. Of course, sexuality realignments (great phrase, eh?) can be very interesting in regards to the reactions of friends and family. But maybe she looked up one day, met someone's eyes across a crowded room, and thought "yeah, that's who I'm supposed to be with." Since that person also happened to be a woman, my practical, pragmatic friend said "hmmm," thought about it for about ten seconds, then in a very organized fashion, totally changed her life around.

Many possibilities, and I'm never gonna know - and I wasn't there to help when it happened, if I even could have.

So, every so often, I will go back to her profile, check it (like by doing that, I can tell if everything is okay), and say to myself: "Yeah. She looks really happy."

Dear Other Moms: Please talk to dads at the playground

2011-05-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

RANT WARNING.

It happened AGAIN. I came home after work (we split forces on childcare) and Husband said, "Toddler and I went to the playground, and none of the moms would talk to me. They all introduce themselves and their kids to each other, but it's like me and my kid aren't even standing there."

"Their kids do talk to me, though." He shrugged. "So that's okay."

Clarification: He's not a whiner (obviously. I would never marry one of those. OBVIOUSLY.). On some level, I doubt Husband even cares all that much about being shunned by moms on the playground - for him, he is just noting bizarre social behavior over in Girl World, which is to Husband a very strange and mysterious place. When he says these things, he is actually asking me to decode women for him.

Wait, I'm wrong. He does care very much in one respect: I can tell that, in the back of his head, he is wondering if these women's behavior is going to affect Toddler in some way, perhaps by influencing how their kids socialize with our daughter - or, more worrisome, how they don't.

A man taking care of a kid still, to this day, stands outside the social norm. Therefore, when you create insider/ outside groups at the playground and stick a man on the outside, you are indeed sticking his kid out there, too. What happens to people who stand outside the social norm, even if Daddy is holding their hand?

We all went to school, we all know the answer to this - what happens is that no one will play with them on the freaking playground.

So, other moms, please listen up. I'm even going to cut you some slack, here - I will admit that (a) Husband is big, (b) bald, (c) there is one very large tattoo, (d) arguably, he looks a little like a commando. He is also clean, has a nice smile, is well-spoken, and within about ten seconds, you can tell he is a devoted and sharp Dad. Moreover, Toddler is a sweetheart. She's not one of those psycho little bullies that too often plague playgrounds. If he were the father of one those little devils, I can see you shunning him.

BUT HE'S NOT. And we're not in junior high or high school anymore. Quit it with the cliques. We all did it back then, we had to, in self-defense. Understandably, clumping together for protection in face of something new - ie, a Daddy at the playground - is a kneejerk human reaction. But it's time to let go of that subconscious behavior. Do you really want your kid imitating you? Do you really want to perpetuate that insider/ outsider dynamic?

Talk. To. My. Husband. At. The. Playground.

And, did I mention, he's hot? When was the last time you had a free pass to talk to a hot guy?

DO IT.

Books: What I'd Read If I Had Any Time

2011-05-05T19:44:00.000-07:00

My reading life is mostly a fantasy right now. However, while I was mooning over the contents of my Amazon shopping cart - I figured out that there's no reason other people can't enjoy these books for me.

Please read them and submit a book report.

Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (I think I found this recommendation at editor Victoria Mixon's blog). Mystery and Manners needs to go on my bookshelf next to another book I have in fact read: Flannery O'Connor's Habit of Being, a collection of her letters. WONDERFUL.

Sara Creasy, Song of Scarabeus. It just looks cool. And it has great reviews.

At Home in the World: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Rosemary Radford Reuther. I saw this book on a bookstore shelf ten years ago and didn't pick it up because I had dissertation fatigue. I've thought about the book ever since.

The new book of Schlesinger letters coming out soon. Link is to NYTimes article. Letters... I adore reading letters.

Tom Holt, Blonde Bombshell. Satire. I like. I actually own this book, but Toddler got sick when I was reading it and I put the book down. That was... wow, five months ago. At least I have now picked it up again. Not a super-challenging plot, but a lot of fun. Smart fun. Quite hilarious in parts. Definitely like.

Gardening: Tree Peony Finally Blooms!

2011-05-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

Sigh!

A tree peony blooming in my garden is like... like... water in the desert, or something like that. I don't have time to coddle flowers, and tree peonies don't tend to be survivors.

This one is.

If you are in the region and love tree peonies, this is "Tree Peony Week" at the Linda Hall Library of Science and Technology in Kansas City, Missouri. Amazing facility, fabulous collections, and a wonderful arboretum that includes probably at least a hundred tree peonies - all in bloom right now. Don't miss it.

App Review: Sex Offender Search Lite

2011-04-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

I know. Unfortunate title, isn't it? I'd have named it Predator Defense. Or Offender Tracker. Something. Anything, that doesn't sound ... like that.

At any rate. Ignore the name, type in your zip code, and, tah dah. Lots of lovely info to freak you out.

My humble opinion on app titles aside - Sex Offender Search Lite is a decent app and worth a try. I can only assume that it draws data from state sex offender registries, such as this one maintained by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI). If you have a problem with the quality of data for your region, you should probably talk to your state rather than complain about it in an app review (just guessing).

Download it. Search the zip code of your home, your relatives, your day care, your school, the grocery store, anywhere you and your kid are on a regular basis. Freak out a little. If it makes you even a little safer and more aware, it's worth it.

And then get ready to freak out again, because I have to tell you, the information is only so reliable.

How do I know? Because my husband has checked offender databases for years. YEARS. He makes me sit down and go over the names with him, the locations, the offenses, etc. (And kudos to my husband for finding this app.)

And because we have been doing this for a while, we NOTICE when offenders mysteriously disappear from the database... sometimes because they have moved, but also sometimes because they have apparently not re-registered. We have one of those living close to us right now. He was on the database seven years ago, now he's not, and he hasn't gone anywhere.

The data will only take you so far. There is no app that can think for you, and make you more aware of your surroundings. Never stop doing that.

This was kind of a serious blog entry, wasn't it? OK, now take a break and go look at silly cats.

Total Silliness: Cats! Cats in tight spots, cats in your underwear

2011-04-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

Cats. Cats, cats! Being their utterly goofy selves. Warning, this is so silly you will lose brain cells. If you're in a tight spot, wait.

Cats Where They Do Not Belong

Writing: Catching the Muse at a Biker Bar

2011-04-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

There are probably not a lot of good reasons to be pulled off the road near a biker bar in a nearly deserted industrial part of town, but I figured I had a good one.

It's not safe to write and drive.

Plus, there were no actual bikers. It was 7:30 am and I was on my way into the office. An entirely different project was on my deadline calendar for the day - I sell my writing time to my clients, essentially, and someone had bought this chunk already. But the Muse had spoken on another project, and when that happens, you don't turn her away from the door.

Ever.

So there I sat, scribbling in the car, rain pouring down, parked in the bottomlands on a road with no storm sewers and water rising all around. I had blown it on this other project once before. After getting off the phone with the editor, bingo, the entire outline, interview plan, etc., had scrolled out beautifully in my head.

But I hadn't written it down. It would have taken me five minutes, but no. And then an hour later, when I had a break in my schedule, it was too late. I had lost it. Lost the vision.

I then could have tried to force the outline, true, but sometimes that's not a good idea. You can always force it later, in fact you will probably have to if you want to finish by deadline. However, you can't always capture - or even less, recapture - that initial divine spark that sets apart the writing from the ordinary.

Luckily, this time the Muse forgave me. She found her way back in, and this time I didn't screw up. Also, because I make sure to build fudge time into my obsessive scheduling, once I got to the office I had another 45 minutes to get the notes into a Word doc, save it, back it up to an external hard drive, and email it to myself so Google could store a copy, too. (The Muse is great, but on the flip side, practicality is equally important.)

The due date is waaaay too close on the Muse project.... but then, deadlines always are. Regardless, the writing will now go a million times easier now, once I schedule myself to sit down and force the piece to the finish.

And maybe I can work in some bikers.

Happy Easter: Fire Station

2011-04-24T13:02:00.001-07:00

Daddy worked today, so Toddler showed off her Easter dress at the fire station... where they were doing confined space/ trench rescue training. On Easter. Yes. I did point out the irony.

And then someone mentioned St. Thomas Aquinas, and they lost me after that.

Happy Easter!

(Posted from my phone)

Complicated: Are women, more... er...

2011-04-23T14:28:00.000-07:00

... bloodthirsty?

Caveat: I don't believe in statements like that. You know, crazy generalizations. Women are X, men are Y, rednecks are Z, etc etc. Generalizations lead to trouuuble and pretty much to civil war, on one level or another.

That said, I'm still wanting to make one. Make one generalization about an entire category, based on two examples: Myself, and one of my neighbors. She's a grandmother, gentle, a kind soul. I'm pretty much not any of that.

We were chatting at the Easter egg hunt for the kiddos. One of my cats just got torn to bits by a pit bull mix. Her terrier nearly suffered a similar fate from a pack of dogs roaming around up near her place.

"You're going to shoot that dog, right," she said. "You better."

"Yep," I said, then explained the story where the marauder came back again after the second cat, and my husband fired the shot in the air rather than at the dog. Reason: The dog was standing in front of my car. I pretty much flipped my lid that he didn't just shoot my freaking car. I want that dog GONE. The sheriff and my husband have both explained to me, very thoroughly, that the dog has to basically attack again or I cannot do that. (I believe they even mentioned the word "felony.")

"Well." She shook her head. "I'd have taken that shot."

Parenting: Teaching Our Kids to See

2011-04-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

Toddler was frustrated. Mama just wasn't getting it. Yet again, an earsplitting screech erupted from the carseat.

Look! A Wam!

"Wam! Wam! WAM!!!!"

Tiny fingers pointed insistently. I looked out the car window once more, and the light finally dawned. There, across the intersection, sat a Dodge pickup. Just like Daddy's, but in red.

"RAM," I said. "Ram truck, honey. Good job!"

And all across town, that's how it goes. Cement truck, dump truck, bulldozer, scraper, flatbed, big truck, little truck, hauler. Toddler knows them all. I've ridden with her and her Daddy before, and learned truck and equipment names that I never before knew existed.

When we head back home, that's where Mama's teaching takes over.

"Those are Hereford, honey. Those are Angus. Good eating. Moo! The Holsteins, no, we don't eat those (well, you do but it's complicated), we drink their milk. That's wheat, there's the co-op, there were beans in that field for three years straight don't they ever rotate? For Pete's sake. Look, a redtail hawk, oh, there's a turkey vulture... and yep, there's the dead raccoon. That's roadkill, baby. Don't look. Don't look! We'll try and find a live one when we get home."

Teaching your kid to see helps build not only a vocabulary, but also a world view. Which is why it's important to consider not only what you ARE pointing out to your own Toddler, but what you're not.

For example, we live about ten miles north of a 400 MW coal-fired power plant, one of the filthiest in the nation. We drive by that skyline, we see the long lines of coal trains, every single day. Massive transmission lines carve out from the facility like spokes on a wheel, sending energy all over the grid.

When you drive by power plants, are you pointing anything out?

I sure am. She's a Toddler, come on, I don't get specific. But I do make sure that she knows this plant is part of her life. It's how we get electricity. It's how we can talk on our phones, run the dishwasher, do the laundry. She knows that the plant takes fuel to run, and the fuel is that black stuff. The black stuff comes from the ground. When it burns, it moves chemicals from the ground to the air. When this happens a lot, the air starts to get hot. Etc.

Whatever your opinion about any of that, here's the essential point: When teaching your kid to see, that's an opportunity to create connections, rather than reinforce disconnects.

If you treat an entire part of life as invisible - the power grid, the food system, Camrys and Cadillacs, whatever - this sends a message. Your kid is their own person, and they will notice some of these things all on their own. They will also notice your blind spots, and some day, those blind spots might make them wonder.

(Admittedly, someday Toddler's going to look back at the roadkill moments and wonder a bit, too.)

Raptor Cam: Eagle babies!

2011-04-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

A friend has gotten me hooked on this raptor cam website - Mama Eagle and baby eaglets.

I thought I had shots on my phone of our lake eagle eating the neighbor's ducks this winter (sad, sad neighbor) but apparently not. I will find those sometime.

Home: Thoughts on Country Living

2011-04-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

You don't have to own a shotgun to live in the country. Nor must you absolutely have four wheel drive. Nor must you own a generator. Etc.

However. I would just like to take a moment to say that if you do have access to any of these things, it definitely helps.

With great views come great responsibilities.

Tips on living in the country - that's really more of a book, not a blog piece, and I'm likely not the best person to write either. I'm trying to figure out why I think that, and really, it boils down to the fact that I'm scared to death of chainsaws. No chainsaw-weenie should write about country living skills, at least not in my mind.

So what. I break my own rules all the time. Now, in the kindest possible way, I would like to offer a little advice. There appear to be lots of newbies at country living these days, and here are just a few tips about how to perhaps adjust your expectations.

Animals. Let's start with the wild ones. Bobcats, coyotes, mountain lions, foxes, badgers, racoons, possums, red-tailed hawks, eagles, Swainson's Hawks, kestrels, etc etc. They actually were here first - I just wanted to point that out - and you came second.

Next point: Many of these animals are predators. Ie, they will eat animals in the category you probably know as "pets." Little yappy dogs, declawed cats, chickens, ducks, boom, lunch. This is natural. You can try to trap and shoot and poison the predator and otherwise make their life hell, but you may want to think about that, because trust me, there will be karma.

Another point: Your dogs. I know it is the country. That does not mean your untrained dog is now free to run around off leash and terrorize us instead of your former suburban neighborhood, and no, chasing cows is not funny. Repeat, not. Moreover, if that dog threatens a person or that person's property, said person has every right to shoot the dog. Yes, you read that correctly. Control your damn dog, or else. Might I also add, there are traps EVERYWHERE in these woods, and if your dog gets stuck in one, it is an awful, horrible way to die.

Vehicles and roads. And, oh yeah, taxes. No, we don't pay much of those out here, which might be part of why you are out here, too. However, with a lack of taxes comes a lack of services, that's part of the deal. When it snows, no, you aren't automatically entitled to have your road plowed. The county might own one or two snowblades at most. Unless you are old, infirm, or otherwise incapacitated and might need food or medical attention, you either need to wait your turn, or go buy your own snowblade. Or pay someone who owns one to dig you out. Or, go grab a shovel. Or, if you don't own chains, why don't you?

Utilities. Water and electric. For the very fact that you have either, you need to give some serious thanks to your government. They paid for it. Without federal subsidies, rural electrification would never have happened. Does your power flicker a lot? Well, you're probably at the end of a distribution line, and it's an old one (been quite a while since that subsidy stuff happened). Do you have poor water pressure? Quit complaining, because that's how rural water works. We're too far from the source to get decent pressure. You're just lucky you're not on well water, and having to worry about groundwater contamination. No, I'm not kidding.

Lawns. It's a free country. If you want to spend all your free time obsessing over some blades of grass, you are of course entitled. Do not, however, expect me to do the same. This ain't no country club.

Snakes. We have them. A few are poisonous. I just mention it. And even non-poisonous snakes will bite, and that doesn't feel too great. As I know to my cost, one dropped on my head once when I was walking under a tree. Yup.

Driving. Slow the hell down. No, there's probably not a cop in ten miles. Doesn't mean you can speed.

Speaking of cops, and firefighters, and paramedics. If you don't REALLY need the sheriff right that second, call the non-emergency number for the dispatch, not 911. The law will get to you eventually. Firefighters are volunteers, and if you do not volunteer along with them, then DONATE MONEY so they can have safe equipment. Paramedics obviously aren't going to have a great response time to your medical emergency when they are being dispatched from several miles away, so you need to think about that, too.

Drugs. There are not just traps in the woods, plus more poison ivy and poison oak than you've ever seen in your life. Reportedly, there are also now more people than ever growing pot in Kansas fields. Don't merrily wander off to go hiking through some overgrown field that seems deserted. It might not be. And if you do it anyway, wear bright colors and please have a clue what hunting season it is.

Home: Rampant Easter Domesticity

2011-04-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

To the nagging question - am I truly a domestic goddess...? - today I can answer a resounding HELL, YES. Thanks to the amazing powers of sparkly sugar and corn syrup, I now feel fulfilled as a woman.

My mom made the sugar cookie dough for me.

Go figure.

May I not so humbly present the glorious fruits of my labor: (a) sugar cookies, and (b) chocolate-covered peanut butter Easter eggs.

I also magnanimously forgive you as you laugh yourself silly, because I know damn well what the eggs REALLY look like (ie, rabbit poop with sugar sprinkles on top). But hey, people eat Baby Ruth candy bars, so why wouldn't they eat these? They are quite delicious, let me tell you. I did cheat and nibble one.

However, I'm really not supposed to eat this stuff. No way is Toddler going to, either, and my husband doesn't have much of a sweet tooth. No problem, I have an entire shift of fire guys who will eat anything, even if looks much worse than this. Also, I now have a dish to proudly present at the family Easter brunch. So what if it looks like fancy rabbit poop.

Back to reality now, though. I was supposed to be finishing up a story, not fiddling around with peanut butter in the kitchen. Now I must go be worker-mom goddess, and on a frigging weekend, too.

But always a goddess, that is the point.

Garden: Mulch, baby, mulch!

2011-04-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

Hopefully not much black walnut in this load.

I chased Toddler around the garden and kept an eye out for snakes, along with the guard cats (yep, there are now two, don't ask).

Therefore, Husband did all the hard work... but let's be honest, he did all the hard work even before Toddler, too.

And now, yay, the garden once more has paths. It's been at least a couple years. I have no problem with a no-till garden, but, boy. That was a bit much.

And in case anyone did a doubletake, yes, that's an old ammo trailer.

Books (and Blogs): What We Are Reading

2011-04-08T19:56:00.000-07:00

A family of bookworms, even Toddler. So this is a pretty mixed bag. (For background on Husband's reading habits and how I have anything to do with them, please see Books for Guys.)

Finding the right book feels a bit like this.

HUSBAND. Basically, he likes tool catalogs, motorcycle catalogs, gun catalogs, diesel truck part catalogs, and me. And I found two new books for him:

Halfway to Heaven: My White-Knuckled - and Knuckleheaded - Quest for the Rocky Mountain High, by Mark Obmascik. Story of a Dad gone a little soft around the middle who gets it in his head that he MUST climb all of Colorado's fourteeners in one year. Is it a tactful book to give your own husband? Er, probably not... but there will be no drama, I promise, because he will be too busy laughing his rear off.

Raising Righteous and Rowdy Girls, by Doug Giles. If you're not scared yet, you should be. Actually, the book is not even in our house yet. A friend sent us the link, Husband clicked and about ten seconds later hit the "buy" button. I imagine this book will get passed around the fire station, too, because they ALL have daughters whom they don't want to grow like the oversexualized child star/ pop princesses that seem to be today's role models. Is the book also a little scary right-wing? Appears so. But, it also seems quite funny.

TODDLER. Where to start...These are just the favorites in the last few days. She reads the same books obsessively for about a week, then moves on. (All of the following are in board book format.)

Mem Fox. Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes. Aw!
Anything by Leslie Patricelli - except for the Blankie book. Too scary. The Binky book is even kind of pushing it (Binky gets lost!! Baby can't find it!!). Potty is hysterically funny.
Big Red Barn, Margaret Wise Brown. Toddler reads this book to us, actually. Aw!
Good Dog, Carl, Alexandra Day. As Husband says, this book is so wrong, on so many levels. But your kid will love it and you will laugh in spite of yourself.
Goodnight, Gorilla, by Peggy Rathman. Also slightly wrong. But very funny. Totally cracks Toddler up, and she loves the illustrations.

Banned Toddler books: Anything with a ^%@*% princess. If she gets into them later, so be it, but I'm not starting her out on girl crack this early in life. (Aw!)

Young Reader: Just bought birthday books for a niece, a chapter book series called Magic Treehouse. LOVE IT. I wish they had books that cool for grown-ups.

MAMA. Who am I kidding? I'm a freelance writer. I have no time to read.

But I have Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan, in the pile. Great so far, but definitely the kind of project that would realize even more of its potential in twenty years, when more web-integrated, tablet-friendly novelizations are the norm. Or maybe that's next year, I don't know. But I still think like a content manager, and part of me just wants to move parts of that book around and keep having fun with it.

Also, The Help came highly recommended. I scanned it and didn't think it was for me, but it seems absolutely perfect for book club readers and is very well reviewed. I also hear it is a brilliant audiobook.

Other than that.. I read blogs. Work blogs, mostly, and my work is all over the place. Lately I've been reading literary agent blogs, also, but I tend not to be too strategic about it. I read where I find interesting minds. Time enough to worry about the rest later.

Firefighter's Wife: Safe Sexting

2011-03-31T09:43:00.000-07:00

DISCLAIMER: I have not, nor will I ever, "sext." (To Dad, my top blog reader and biggest fan: "sexting" means texting with adult content. Yeah. Words, pictures, graphics. Yeah.)

I have not, do not, and will not sext because I am a mature adult with strong character and moral fiber from a fairly conservative background and I believe that anything of remotely sexual (eek!) nature, even between husband and wife, is a private matter only for the bedroom. Wait, I don't even say the word "bedroom," I forgot. And I only know about sexting because I accidentally saw a show about it on TV. Oprah. Yes, Oprah. Oprah corrupted my innocence.

So I am clearly not the correct person to make any set of recommendations on safe sexting, and I humbly apologize for venturing into these waters - geez, for some reason I am now even nervous about the word "waters" - much less for offering anything even feebly resembling advice. And the advice I am offering now is in no way influenced by the fact that I spend a lot of time in the company of men. Listening. I try to shut my ears but I can't help it, I think sometimes they forget I am there.

So, ladies, listen the hell up. Let me walk you through a hypothetical scenario that has absolutely not happened to anyone I know:

1. You know your husband/ boyfriend/ girlfriend/ partner. Does this individual keep good track of their phone?

2. Answer (1) on the basis of your OBSERVATIONS of this individual, their actions, versus the reassuring words that are bound to come out of their mouth. (Ie, what significant other is really going to say - "No, I left my phone out on the table at work for the entire day yesterday, oops. Maybe you'd better not send me naked pictures anymore because I am not a safe guardian of your hotness - the same hotness I dearly hope you will share with me on at least a semi-regular basis, and I know you won't if I tell you the truth about my phone.")

3. Does that phone have a password?

4. Do any coworkers know that password?

5. Does the picture, text, graphic, etc., pop up on the screen with or without the password?

6. Do you or do you not care who sees you naked? Or reads your naughty-hey-baby line of thought?

I think it is enough for the above cautions on safe sexting to simply cover the "accidental" exposure scenarios - scenarios that might occur between two consenting, mature adults who care about protecting one another's privacy and who are involved in a long-term relationship sanctioned by - by - okay, not going there.

You get the point. If you change any of these variables, then the drama potential expands exponentially. Ouch.

Hypothetically, of course.

(And if my Dad did not regularly read my blog, imagine what this post would have looked like.)

Thoughts: Anniversaries and Kool-Aid

2011-03-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

It is anniversary season at our house, and will be for the next couple of weeks. Sixteen years ago, we met in late January, got engaged that March, bought a house in May, and married the following April. Yeah. But hey, it worked.

Remodeling a 1960s kitchen is one of the smaller obstacles we have faced.

Last night, we were reminiscing. Mostly about how many dumb decisions we made together early on, which will naturally happen when you get married pretty much out of grade school. One house (not the first one, actually), a white 1990 Ford Bronco a la OJ Simpson, and a couple of trips to the Humane Society. And, we are evidently not done yet - our most recent delusional move was to even think we would ever be able to drop off our little girl at a daycare provider. That still hasn't happened. Instead, we decided to turn our lives completely upside down.

After we laughed ourselves into stitches, B said he thought we were being too negative.

"You know what I'm proudest of," he said. "We never drink the Kool-Aid."

Nice, huh? B did it all (not finished yet in pic - I moved in anyway)

And I knew exactly what he meant. We make mistakes, sure, but after the reality sinks in, we usually don't kid ourselves. We have the headslap moment, say damnit! then figure out how to fix it. When one of us is in severe denial about the continued viability of a job, friendship, or other situation (say, a ridiculously ambitious kitchen remodel) - the other person never plays along.

Not drinking the Kool-Aid... that moment is when you have a choice to keep on doing a dumb thing, or to back off and make it right. If you are in a relationship, ideally you can support your partner in hitting the stop button, too.

However, I'm not saying that avoiding slippery slopes is the sole way to keep a relationship going for sixteen years. Some people might really like Kool-Aid. Some relationships might be based on it, and the only conflict is over what flavor. Some people might also be so sharp and on top of it that Kool-Aid is never a problem. (I have not met them yet, if so, but it is entirely possible that they do exist.) Again, there is no one recipe for a good relationship. Everyone is different. However, when the pair of you handle reality in a similar way, it can only help.

And this is good, because the next remodeling project - the bathroom.

Messaging: When It Works

2011-03-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

Even though this isn't my job anymore, I still spend a lot of time reading more or less mainstream press outlets and tearing my hair at how abysmally they usually present issues such as climate change and renewable energy. Sometimes I even sob "no, no, no!" at my computer screen, and/or shriek, whereupon a colleague will walk in and say - get a grip, woman.

But there are moments... and of course, when one of these glorious moments occurs, it figures that it doesn't come from the mainstream press. In this case, my new favorite opinion piece, written by Dan Murphy (whom I don't know), comes from the Drovers' Cattle Network. I'm not grooving on the title - "Morality v. Economy" (hello, what? sweeping, unclear) - but the rest definitely meets my approval.

Here is a taste, from the introduction, where Mr. Murphy is writing about the impact of oil prices on food production and food prices, especially during a down economy.

Such pressures inevitably stir up a series of moral dilemmas leveraged by activists to question the sustainability, and the moral status, of animal agriculture. Guaranteed: We’ll be hearing again in the coming months the same old sermons about the wastefulness of growing grain to feed livestock, the over-dependence of agriculture on fossil fuels, and the underlying injustice of factory farming.

If only, we’ll be scolded, if only we could
Stop eating meat and divert feed crop acreage to food production
Replace confinement production with “natural” methods of raising livestock
Reject biotechnology and its insidious impact of food production
Why, then we would mitigate the effects of sky-high oil, solve the global dilemma of hunger and poverty and end the morally crippling abuse of farm and food animals that perverts our contemporary culture. Problem(s) solved.

As if.

But wait. This article is not going where you think. Murphy is about to turn on a dime. Consider:

It’s too simplistic to dismiss the activist agenda as incorrect. Something we need not seriously consider, since it doesn’t fit with the paradigm of modern food production...

Yet as a society, as a nation, we do ourselves a disservice if we ignore the threat to the food production systems we’ve come to take for granted that is presented by the energy-driven shocks we’ve already experienced and which are only going to recur with even greater velocity in the years ahead.

Energy security, food security, national security. These things matter. In the rest of the article, Murphy goes on to outline pragmatic reasons to rethink biofuels, adopt more on-farm renewable energy systems, and pursue a "dynamic evolution" in meat production and animal welfare. He doesn't particularly speak well of climate change (or presumably climate change educators, even former ones) but, so what, he's already batting .500 on my major energy issues. Plus, he doesn't necessarily have to accept (or reject) my thinking on climate change in order for us to agree on these other topics.

Mr. Murphy's highly effective rhetorical strategy is the one I think of as: "Darn those dumb hippies... but." If you're a sensitive hippie, this will understandably upset you (and if so, please reflect on the word "scold" as Murphy uses it above. Scolding adults doesn't work any better than scolding toddlers, take it from me). If you are a pragmatic hippie - or a pragmatic anyone, who feels passionately about food system and energy system reform - please give me a moment to explain.

Good communications strategies must take into account context. Like it or not, energy and climate are brutally polarized issues, without a lot of people holding hands over the divide. Most of them are more inclined to take potshots at one another. If someone on one extreme wants to speak about, or take a stand on issues that his or her main audience perceives to be "owned" by the other extreme, the options are limited. You have to fit in with your audience's worldview, or they will ignore you. When you suggest an idea that may be at odds with the gospel as they know it, you face a significant challenge.

While it's not pretty and not ideal, a negative slam on a mutually despised group (in this case, the generic "activists" punching bag, in my mind they also drink lattes), can actually create a shared common ground. Common ground is a key step in reframing an issue in terms that your audience is willing to think about it. This is how things move forwards. That is exactly the movement of Murphy's piece.

The "that's stupid, but" approach is only one reason that this piece worked. That rhetorical approach is only a device, and devices only get you so far. My second reason is far more elusive to explain, but I liked how Murphy's take on these issues were grounded. Grounded in everyday farm practices and market realities. Farmers and ranchers do not and never will think of weather and environment in abstract terms, the top down approach used by so many writers on topics of climate and energy. These guys think from the bottom up, and that's how Murphy writes about the issues, too. Any "activist" or "hippie" writers (by the way, I'm not into labels myself) might have trouble adopting Murphy's rhetorical device, but they would do well to consider this deeper aspect of his writing.

If Mr. Murphy ever wanted to take on a column about climate change.... it's not my official job anymore, but I'd be more than happy to help out.

In Memory: Steve Smith

2011-03-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

Goodbye, Steve. We will miss you more than we can say. From the obituary:

He was born Sept. 21, 1960, in Plattsburg, N.Y., the son of Robert Elmer and Anna Lois Hughes Smith. He graduated from high school in Sumpter, S.C. He joined the U.S. Air Force in 1981 and later joined the U.S. Army before returning to the Air Force. He served during Operations Desert Storm, Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and New Dawn. He had attained the rank of senior master sergeant and was posthumously promoted to chief master sergeant. He was employed by the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire and Medical as an engineer and emergency medical technician, with 20 years of service. He enjoyed firearms and his quarter horse.

Until I read the newspaper story below, I had totally forgotten about Steve falling through the floor during that apartment fire. That was one of the first major calls my husband ran with the Lawrence department. He and Steve were friends.

From the news story by George Diepenbrock in the LJWorld:

Whether Steve Smith was fighting fires in Lawrence or serving his three tours of military duty in the Middle East, he had one thing on his mind.

“He just felt like if he was doing something for somebody else that was beneficial not only to him but to the whole community,” his father Robert Smith of Osage City said, “that’s what he was trying to do.”

And family members, friends and colleagues said this week Smith leaves behind a legacy of public service.

“He was one of the most selfless people, most giving people I’ve ever known in my life,” said Karen Glotzbach, a fellow Lawrence Douglas County Fire and Medical engineer and paramedic.

Robert Steven “Smitty” Smith, 50, an engineer and emergency medical technician for nearly 20 years in Lawrence, died Monday at his Lecompton home from natural causes, chief Mark Bradford said.

A visitation is scheduled for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday at Mustard Seed Church, 700 Wakarusa Drive, and funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. Friday at the church. Honor guards from the Lawrence Douglas County Fire and Medical and the U.S. Air Force will participate.

Smith was drawn first to the Air Force from 1981 to 1985, where he spent time in Japan as a radio intelligence analyst. He later enlisted in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and went to jump school in 1985 but broke his leg twice, retired from the Army in 1988 and enlisted as an Air Force reservist.

He served in Desert Storm in 1991 and in United Arab Emirates from October 2001 to November 2002.

Smith took a break from his fire service from May 2009 to January 2010 and returned to Iraq where he managed security at an Air Force base at Kirkuk. The Air Force posthumously promoted him to the highest enlisted rank of chief master sergeant.

“He knew exactly what freedom meant,” Bradford said. “We take it for granted. I think being deployed he knew what it was for men and women to sacrifice their lives so we could have freedom as we know it. And he didn’t take that lightly.”

Gary Smith said during his brother’s last deployment to Iraq his brother worked 184 days without taking a day off, something he did often to give co-workers a chance to spend more time with their families.

In 2002, those acts of kindnesses could have cost Smith his life when, his father said, he volunteered to work Christmas Day.

While fighting a fire that night in an apartment at 213 Hanover Place in Oread neighborhood Smith fell to the basement in a hole that was burned in the floor. He held on to the hose and alternated between spraying himself down and fighting the flames.

His fellow firefighters were able to get a second breathing apparatus to him, and eventually they rescued him. He was hospitalized for smoke inhalation but otherwise he was physically fine and more worried about the firefighters who helped rescue him, Bradford said.

Gary Smith said his brother struggled with bad memories of the event but would still travel around and speak to fellow firefighters about the importance of proper training and how to act under pressure.

“He stressed these things to the people he cared about, ‘I have to be an example to them,’” Gary Smith said.

Aside from his times spent joking with and mentoring to younger firefighters, friends said Steve Smith’s commitment to public service helped him bounce back from tough experiences.

“That takes some courage to go back in, but he did come back,” said Mark Thomas, a fellow engineer who knew Smith for 20 years.

Garden: Bulletins from the berry patch

2011-03-24T06:08:00.000-07:00

If you ever saw our house from the road, it would probably come as a shock that we think of ourselves as gardeners. We do not particularly think of ourselves as people who mow the lawn, and this is part of it. We also don't tend to go for landscaping or beds of flowers, native or otherwise.

Farming grass seed, farming flowers... if this is your thing, no problem. But at our house, we believe in the berry patch. And only slightly less, we believe in the herb and vegetable garden. Our time is limited in this crazy world, and we prefer to spend ours growing things to eat. And hiking, for that matter. Landscaping... not likely. Plus, we live in prime copperhead country, and there's a limit to how long your nerves can stand grubbing around at ground level.

That's another reason a berry patch - raspberries, for choice - full of thorns is a very, very good idea. I also spread pine needles everywhere, especially in the strawberries. They mostly do their work in repelling snails, but I fantasize that they slow the snakes down at least a little.

I would post pictures, but my hands are usually too muddy this time of year to want to pick up my phone and take any shots. Plus, right now the berry patch is only a ragged assortment of bare red canes, and the strawberries are tiny green florets still hugging tight to the ground. We've clipped out all the dead canes, spread llama poop everywhere, and soon, after a few more frosts, I'll give the live canes a quick haircut up top to stimulate more floral growth. Sooner or later, one of us will get more straw and mulch the roots, or even spread the totally uncomposted crop of winter compost. Raspberries don't care, they'll eat anything.

How many berries did we pick last year? I stopped counting after twenty gallons. I'm almost to the end of them in the freezer. Never got around to making jam. Jam-making is not compatible with a toddler.

Toddler spends lots of time in the berry patch, too (after a grown-up first casts around anxiously for snakes). We have a snake-hating tomcat, too, and he follows her around like a shadow. He hates everything that moves, pretty much, excluding her, so she's probably about as safe as she can be.

Unfortunately, Toddler also remembers the berry patch at its height, last spring and fall, when she could eat her fill everytime she went outside. When there's no "nummies" on the canes, she threatens a meltdown of epic proportions.

So far, I've been able to distract her with the lemon thyme. It grows rampant, and is greening up already. I stick her in the middle of the patch and she grins, digs in with chubby fists, and pulls.

Now if I could only teach her to weed.

In Memory: Steve Smith - Army, Air Force, Lawrence Fire Department

2011-03-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

We lost a firefighter yesterday - Steve Smith, one of the gentlest, kindest men you could ever imagine. I had spoken to him just a day earlier. He played with the baby, talked about how much she had grown and how long her hair was getting, and how much she looked like her daddy. She had recently been sick with the virus going around, and he mentioned that he'd been feeling poorly himself.

Steve had served in both Army and Air Force, and his rank was Sergeant Major (I think). To my memory, he had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other places. I may be getting details of his service confused with some of our other veterans in the Department, but the important thing is - he served. His whole life, he served.

Steve was divorced and had two kids. I don't know any details on the funeral as yet.

Garden: Spring - or something - has sprung

2011-03-10T07:23:00.000-08:00

So, this is how it happened... early morn. Sun is barely up. With the exception of big, heavy boots, I am not dressed appropriately, but I am outside carrying wood anyway. I'll need to build a fire later tonight when I get home, and experience has taught me that the LAST thing I enjoy doing is carrying wood in the dark of early springtime, worrying whether the copperheads have woken up yet.

(You see where this is going.)

No, no you don't. Just wait.

As one might expect, I got splinters. Yeah. Oh well, not the first time. However, a key corollary to Murphy's Law is also about to go into effect, and that corollary states: "If thou art not dressed appropriately, thou wilt inevitably be discovered."

Normally, not a problem. The wood pile is craftily set within a nook of the house that hides it from the road.

Oh, but then I saw the daffodil shoots....

They were popping up over by the Pan statue (don't ask. Previous owner. She left her pagan statuary collection behind, along with some other less mentionable memorabilia, including some interesting catalogs that STILL show up at our address). The daffodil shoots are dark green, the same color as the shirt I will dress my daughter in this morning. I knew I bought that color for a reason.

I walked over to them. Then I wondered - if the daffodils are coming up, is the poison ivy about to green up, too? Because with one thing and another last fall, I never got that patch sprayed.

I walked a little further.

And then my neighbor drove by.

Update: elevator babies and lack of cows

2011-02-28T10:49:00.000-08:00

No posts. Good reasons. My husband delivered a baby in an elevator (relax, he's a paramedic, he's qualified) and the media is stressing him just a bit, then there were all the water rescues from the storms... yes, life is interesting when Daddy is on shift. Toddler learned to climb. Daddy and Toddler were sick for a while. My mom's poodle got shot with skunk juice. We had gnarly weather. There was the firefighters' ball. There was union bashing, and we are obviously union, with a firefighter in the family. I had an incredible number of billable hours last month, and did NOT get to write about cows, darnit, but I plan to get to that this week.

And somewhere, there came HB 2141 in the Kansas House - it would prohibit the severance of wind rights from other property rights. Mineral rights in KS can be severed, of course.

Hmmm. Apparently similar bills were passed in OK and NE last year.

Also, for Kansans living on the Kaw Valley watershed, there are two river dredging-related permits up for public comment before March 9.

Complicated: Is the world falling apart again, or is it just me?

2011-02-21T08:42:00.000-08:00

Probably I shouldn't have stayed up past midnight reading the #Libya posts on Twitter. Even before then, though, I had the feeling that we are all rollerskating on marbles just a little bit more than usual.

Markets, food crops, culture vultures, technological breakthroughs and breakups, weather bizarreness - at the basis of it all lies rhythms, and I can hear discord and jangle. Not in a good way, either. Not as counterpoint and punctuation for highlighting the good stuff, but something working more as a corrosive, a solvent.

And I can see an argument where that is not all bad. Sure, there's plenty of old ways, settled ways, that haven't led to the betterment of mankind. That kind of thing could stand to be corroded and destroyed... then you read the #Libya hashtag, and you realize, that blood still flows down all these channels, good and bad, and when you change the channels, blood spills. And when blood spills, people die. Lives change forever, and change can be excruciating. Even if good stuff lies at the end, change leaves a mark.

You can tell I'm a bit disturbed, I just used way too many metaphors. Nor am I going to edit them out, because I have a client meeting in, oh, ten minutes and I need to get a move on and switch my brain into other gears. I get paid to focus and analyze the concrete, not to ramble about speculations.

But to leave on a good thing - my husband delivered a baby in an elevator over the weekend. Happy, healthy little girl. Baby and mama are both fine.

And later today, I get to write about cows.

Complicated: The Kids Are Alright

2011-02-15T08:16:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day was a bit dire at our house - everyone but me fell ill, so in a way that explains why I was at the drugstore at 9:00 pm on Valentine's Eve, standing right next to the porn magazines.

That is of course where they keep the automotive and truck magazines, too, and I no longer had time to be very picky about a Valentine's Day present for my dear husband. I was going to cook him an incredible meal, but since he couldn't eat, food was out for the time being. Truck magazines it was, along with some Theraflu.

I was flipping through a copy of Diesel World, making sure there was no actual porn in it that my daughter might catch sight of (and there isn't - thank you, editors, I might actually let my husband subscribe to this one), when I heard the voices.

"What?? I never buy condoms!! The Guy is supposed to do that!!!!"

"I know, I know!! But I just want a packet for myself!!!"

"They're expensive!!!"

"But I just want a small one!!!!"

I couldn't help it, I looked. I rubbernecked, like you might at the scene of a terrible accident. Two girls, technically young women, and it probably doesn't matter what they looked like. All I could think was - that is now number one on the list of conversations I never want my own daughter to have.

Over the next few minutes, their voices floated all over the store. Thankfully I lost track of the specifics, and when I went to the cash register, those girls were headed out the door.

The young man at the register had excellent quality tattoos all over his visible skin, with the exception of his face. He wore a studded collar around his neck and had longer (and prettier, sob) hair than I do. He and the woman working with him were discussing the pair that had just left, and I joined in. He repeated the snippet he had heard - that the girls really hated their boyfriends, but were going to stick with them through Valentine's Day, just to see if they got anything good.

"Wow," I said. "Just to reassure you - real women are not like that."

"Oh, I know," he said. "I know plenty of real women. Those are just confused girls with credit cards." And he didn't even blink as I laid down the diesel truck magazine.

I walked out into the night, and I thought, YEAH. Somewhere, someone raised him right.

Good job.

Food: Happy Husband Brownies

2011-02-11T18:14:00.000-08:00

What is the only thing that will cheer up a man who almost froze to death in below zero wind chills while changing out a fuel line in the snowy driveway during a dark and stormy night?

Nope, not even that. Instead, I had to pull out the big guns:

Preheat oven. Mix ingredients. Pour batter in lightly greased pan and bake. Remove from oven. Let cool on baking rack. Cut off a big whacking hunk, put in bowl, add ice cream, offer directly to miserable husband. Cross fingers, smile while he eats it... then check his extremities for frostbite, and send him off to take a long, warm shower.

(But the chocolate really does have to come first.)

Food: Curried Sweet Potato Soup

2011-02-03T17:34:00.001-08:00

This sweet potato was just too funny not to cook.

(human hand included for scale)

For the fate of this, er, tuber - Curried Sweet Potato and Lentil Soup - please read on.

RECIPE: Curried Sweet Potato and Lentil Soup

My husband never seems surprised any more at what I come home with from the grocery store. Maybe because he has had a variant of this conversation several times over the years:

Him: "Mmm. Interesting... sweet potato. I thought you hated sweet potato."
Me: "Oh, I do. But it was so funny. I just had to buy it."
Him: "Ah."
Me: "Don't worry, I'm going to cook this - thing - with curry and then puree the heck out of it, so I can't taste the sweet potato flavor. And then I'll throw in some lentils."
Him: "For protein?"
Me: "Oh yeah. But, they're orange, too."

Ingredients
- Four cups-ish of sweet potato, peeled and diced evenly in bite-size chunks.
- Four cups of broth, vegetable or chicken, makes no difference. Use more if needed.
- Curry
- Red pepper flakes
- one small can condensed milk
- 1/3 cup lentils
- butter
- olive oil
- yogurt or tzatziki (sp?) sauce for serving. Or sour cream.

Instructions
Wash and rinse lentils several times. Bring broth to boil, dump in lentils and sweet potatoes. Cook till they are done, then smash up with hand blender. Add milk (remember to shake can well). Let simmer. DON'T boil after this point.

Dump butter and oil into small skillet, warm it over heat. Add between 1-3 tablespoons of curry, depending on how much you too hate the taste of sweet potato. Dump - oh damn, it spilled! in some red pepper flakes, too. Say some bad words, grab a spoon, scoop a bunch of them out. Figure it doesn't look too bad after all.

Turn up heat, let spices sizzle, do not burn. When oils look nicely flavored, remove from heat and dump into soup. Stir, simmer just a bit, then serve with yogurt etc. Serve with any kind of bread you like, but dill would also taste pretty good.

Wait, I hate dill, too.

Writing, and the freelance diaries: The happy times

2011-02-03T06:54:00.000-08:00

Indeed, the freelance life is a rollercoaster, so you need to enjoy the good times while they are here.

Projects currently in the hopper: proposals on water quality and the economic value of the arts (the arts foster critical thinking skills, hello, research backs this up, and critical thinking is kinda important when it comes to making money), and articles on new currents (ha) in wind research, plus recent developments in the science regarding carbon dixoide's impact on forage grasses. I also have high hopes of eventually selling an article reviewing and synthesizing techniques in wind data mining. Fingers crossed.

Oh yes, and the gnarly manuscript edit is coming under control. I think. Two thousand more words down, at any rate, and I know a lot more about Afghanistan than I ever did before. Which is pathetic, really, we've been at war there for ten years or so, we should ALL know a lot more about Afghanistan. Which we do not.

When the writing times are good, that is also the time to set crazy insane goals. Let's see... within a year, what else do I want to write about? Well...

1) Definitely more on cows. I love writing about cows.
2) Guns! We need more girls writing about guns, too. The world needs this. Really.
3) Sex OOPS NO WAIT! Relationship skills. Intimacy stuff :) that is what I meant to say.

Lest my father read this and assume that his wildest fears are now coming true, that his daughter might start writing for the porn industry.

Joke, Dad. Joke!

(Dad...?)

EDIT: Forgot one. (4) I want to write on quantum physics. Specifically, on quark gluon plasma, with which I am currently obsessed.

Am I qualified to write on physics? Oh heck no. But I have been reading CERN's Quantum Diaries and it is firing my mind with fantastic ideas.

Home: Snow Mama and Snow Baby go sledding! by accident!

2011-02-01T13:25:00.000-08:00

I mentioned earlier than we had ice for twenty four hours prior to the snow, right? I believe I did. Thus, a lighthearted trek to the mailbox turned into a trip of treacherous footing.

I turned around halfway. Forget the mail. Holding Snow Baby in my arms, I was almost back to the house when... boom! Mama bit it.

But in slow motion. YouTube would have loved it. There was cursing.

And, I must add, there were delirious shrieks of glee. Snow Baby loves snow, that's why we were out there in the first place. When she saw the ground coming toward her she did her best to meet it halfway and eagerly attempted to throw herself from my arms.

Luckily, we already had about four inches plus drifting (wah), and the fall for both of us was quite soft. I lay there and thought, wow, that didn't really hurt. Except where my kid landed on top of me. Snow Baby then proceeded to roll out of my arms, laughing wildly, and started sliding down the hill. I grabbed her by the boot, which came off, so I then grabbed her bare little foot. And then I too started sliding.

The trashcan was right there. Saved by a solid mass of frozen dirty diapers, who would have guessed?

I think we will just hunker down inside for a little while.

Snow Daddy has now been on shift for 32.5 hours straight. An hour or so ago he texted me: "We are losing the war on snow." Bulletin from Mother Nature: Duh. I'd take pictures, but my phone camera is fighting back. Not much to take pictures of, though. It's a total whiteout.

Home: Things I'm supposed to worry about - #mwblizzard update

2011-02-01T07:35:00.000-08:00

Snow Daddy left me with a list of many potential disasters, all of which I am supposed to avoid if possible. Most involve the generator, and that subset of disaster is too comprehensive to be included here in full. For some reason, he panics at the thought of "wife" and "generator" in the same sentence. I'm not sure whether or not to be offended.

Reading over the list, you might notice some potential conflict between items.

1) Take my phone if I go outside. (Whom do I call if something happens...? He was unclear.)

2) Don't go outside. I might fall and break my leg, or have a heart attack, and then what would happen to Snow Baby? (Easy. I'd call her.)

3) Try, if possible, to shovel snow if I can. Thus in case I need to wheel the generator out of the garage, I have a clear path.

4) Don't shovel snow at all, I will hurt my back.

5) Better carry some more wood. He could be stuck on shift for quite a while longer.

6) Damn, the back.

7) If you have to turn the generator on.... wow, this list was written and covered two pages.

I should mention that we have been there, done that, before - in 2007, I think, we lost power for four days in an ice storm. That was fun. We live in a rural area at the end of a distribution line that looks like it dates from the 1960s, so power outages are not uncommon at our house, even in good weather.

Snow update: Here in rural Jeff County, KS, I seem to have about an inch... but it is very hard to tell, with all the snow blowing like crazy. It has only been snowing for a relatively short while. Our lake is almost completely windswept, with dark expanses of ice are showing through the snow cover for the first time this winter. The geese hole has iced over, and none of the geese can be seen.

While I have electricity, I'm going to go cook and bake more things that can be easily reheated in microwave (ha, generator!) or on woodstove (because I want to save generator fuel to mostly run space heater in Snow Baby's room. Which is naturally the farthest room from woodstove).

Just in case.

Home: Snow Mama survival guide, #mwblizzard Day 1

2011-02-01T07:04:00.000-08:00

Greetings, from the Arctic tundra formerly known as Kansas. Here is the story of how I spent my morning - wood, wood, more wood, shoveling snow, wood. As in carrying wood, fuel for the woodstove. We do have a heat pump, but our ancient lake cabin leaks air like a sieve, and the woodstove is an absolute necessity.

Obviously, I did all this during morning naptime. Snow Baby is intrepid, but Snow Mama is not and I just didn't see how I could both carry wood and keep her from getting carried off by an eagle, mountain lion, or even our German Shepherd, because this is totally his kind of weather and he really wants someone to play with.

I was not that person, and I had to apologize to him. I was too busy trying to figure out how snow is managing to blow in under both our back AND front door, when they stand on opposite sides of the house. Conclusion: We are just lucky. Some atmospheric tweak means that our little woodsy hollow generates exactly the right amount of turbulence that, yay, snow is now drifting around our house from all directions.

It just started snowing an hour ago, BTW. I was grateful at first, because (a) I was tired of the suspense, and (b) I was really tired of the ice that had come down for the past 24 hours. The ice was not a thick layer, but definitely enough to make it like walking on banana peels. (Try hauling wood in that.) I have now progressed from that initial emotion, to one much closer to "oh SH!T." I just shoveled twice in 45 minutes, it looks like I did nothing, and the really hard stuff hasn't even hit yet?

Yay.

Where is Snow Daddy, you ask? Well you might. Snow Daddy is still on shift, now at 27 hours and counting. Yes, it's the firefighter thing. They held over an entire shift. I'm worried about his food situation, because I only sent him with a day's worth of meals, and I think it could be quite likely he gets held there for 48 or even 72 hours. I have all the ingredients for breakfast burritos ready to go, for whenever he makes it home. Fingers crossed. No, I'm sure he will... but, you always worry.

Such are the joys of marrying a bad*ss :) As I watch the snow blow wildly outside my window, I realize that I missed a big piece of information before I became a firefighter's spouse: Ie, whenever a natural (or any other) disaster strikes... they have to work, and you have to be the grown-up and carry the wood. The main reason I married Snow Daddy is because he is the most amazing man in the world, but I now also realize that part of my subconscious definitely likes it that he is so tough, because I am not. In fact, I am quite breakable.

Luckily, I'm also up to the challenge. And, as it turns out, you don't have to be a badass to survive. Living with one (who is also an eensy bit of a survival nut) helps a lot, admittedly. Before he went on shift he set up the generator, hauled a cord of wood close to the house for easy carrying, etc., etc.

But really, a big help in survival is planning. That, I can do. Supplies, batteries, diapers, a snow shoveling schedule, water... got all that covered. Medical attention, not so much, but we will just try to be careful. I might even break down and turn on Sesame Street or Clifford later this morning for Snow Baby, before I take her outside with me to shovel snow and feed the birds.

Stay tuned... provided I continue to have internet! if not, there is always Twitter (usually - unless you are in Egypt).

Books: Books for Guys

2011-01-25T11:58:00.000-08:00

Manly guys. (Not that there's any other kind, right?)

My husband and his buddies tend to read books as a group - one copy that they pass around for months and months. The increasingly battered book gets handed over during shift change, or when they are helping each other with something car, house, or kid-related (yep. Manly guys take care of the kids. Very well, too.).

I watch these books go by, and occasionally I reach out and grab one - because all the print I've read for the last two years are child development books, Go Dog Go, Pat the Bunny, etc. (Oh yeah, and Redbook - and for some reason, Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood novels.)

If I'm ever at a bookstore I try to find a good guy book to throw into the mix. I proudly can claim the Krakauer and Generation Kill below.

Some of the recent successes:

Bear Grylls - The Kid Who Climbed Everest
Man v. Wild, the survivalist guy on the Discovery Channel (who I'm pretty sure at one point drank urine, although I'm also sure there's more to the story - there always is). Story of how he broke his back on a British Special Forces parachute jump then managed to climb Everest eighteen months later at age 23. My husband can't put this one down.

Evan Wright - Generation Kill
An embedded journalist's story of the initial invasion of Iraq at the beginning of the Second Gulf War (Iraq War). Not an easy read to shake off - I read it probably five years ago and still have vivid memories of the writing and characters involved.

Jon Krakauer - Where Men Win Glory: The Odysesy of Pat Tillman
Everyone knows this story... but until you read this book, you don't in fact know the story at all. I couldn't finish it, but I was the only one. Still very glad for what I did read. Hugely impressed with Tillman's wife/ widow. New edition is out now, edited to include new Freedom of Information Act info.

Marcus Luttrell - Lone Survivor
Five Navy SEALs go into the hills of the Aghanistan-Pakistan border. Four do not return. Pretty intense. Written by the survivor. Husband's favorite read.

"The Alaska Guy." - We can't remember the real title, and no one knows who has the book right now. At any rate, it's about a guy who lived out in the Alaska wilderness during the 1960s and made his own cabin. Great pictures - apparently also made into a documentary.

Thoughts: Red in tooth and claw

2011-01-21T08:43:00.000-08:00

My Twitter friends have noticed increased accounts of bird fatalities popping up in my feed. Apologies for the graphic descriptions. We live on a lake that attracts enormous numbers of overwintering birds... along with their predators.

The one that really makes you duck at shadows is the bald eagle. His roost is likely forty miles or so down valley at one of the nesting sites, but he comes up north to spend his day happily striking at ducks and geese, then beheading, defeathering, and devouring them. The kestrel and the redtail hawk make the bird feeder a daily adventure for the smaller birds. It's amazing to me the cat has survived, and I'm not even sure I want my toddler outside, exposed. If she has to be, I make her big daddy carry her. Just on the (very) off chance.

So instead we spend our winter inside reading silly kids' stories about how all the happy animals hang out and get along. And we eat a lot of meat.

It will be fun to explain those mixed messages someday.

Article: Cattle and climate change, @KansasAgland

2011-01-20T12:23:00.000-08:00

Yo, meat lovers - please read my new blog on beef cattle, heat stress, and climate change, over at Kansas Agland. Fascinating material and never a dull moment, I promise you! I also threw in a few bonus facts on the impact of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on forage grasses.

Sampling of the wonderfulness:

Higher average temperatures, melting polar ice caps, sea level rise, more extreme weather events, increased drought – daily headlines tell readers a lot about the projected global impacts of climate change.

Mainstream news sources are a bit vague, though, on some specific questions that interest agricultural producers. For example, what impact will climate change and increased heat stress have on beef cattle?

The livestock industry has always had to deal with heat stress. However, according to USDA researcher Dr. Jerry Hatfield, climate change will increase extreme heat events “as much as two to three times per year,” affecting both feedlot and cow-calf production cycles. These heat waves will also be more variable, some coming at unseasonal times...

Read more. And I thank you in advance for no comments on my picture. Tip: My husband picked it out.

Daily: Snow day

2011-01-10T12:17:00.000-08:00

Snowed in, working from home. With (a) a toddler, and (b) an equally active husband.

No problem, that's what walks in deep snow are for.

And I promise to bring them both back home again.

Article: Climate change could have major impacts on wind resources (@NAWindpower)

2011-01-04T11:57:00.000-08:00

Read my new story now up for a short time at NAWindpower - the potential impacts of climate change for wind resources.

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The wind industry sees climate change as an opportunity. In a world where reducing carbon will most likely be the norm, wind power is seen as valuable, in part due to its lack of greenhouse gas emissions.

However, climate change also presents risks and threats to wind energy in terms of wind resources. Is there a chance that wind could also become a casualty of climate change?

According to various scientists, the major risks for wind power fall into two basic categories - changes in the wind resource distribution and risks to infrastructure. All forms of renewable energy are somewhat sensitive to climate variation. While not as vulnerable to climate change as hydropower or biomass, wind resources will likely face some shifts in location, intensity, interval and duration.

However, those shifts are difficult to predict.

Read more.

News flash: KRC offers new legislative resource for farmers and other land folk

2010-12-29T08:59:00.000-08:00

The Kansas Rural Center (KRC) is announcing a wonderful new service - for only $20, you can sign up to receive weekly legislative and policy reports on agriculture issues during the Kansas legislative session, as well as upcoming federal debates over the Farm Bill.

Perry farmer Paul Johnson will be running the service. Many of us know Paul and are aware of his long tenure as lobbyist for a consortium of church groups, as well as his incredible understanding of that mangled machine we all know as "government." I can think of no better navigator to help wade through these complicated issues.

Parenting: Classic holiday party moment

2010-12-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

While chatting and holding Kiddo, Kiddo decided she no longer wanted her cracker. Thus, she took her sticky little hand and crammed the crumbly remnants down my cleavage.

The elderly gentleman I was talking to said, "I'm going to take it for granted you don't need any help with that."

News flash: Westar wind, KS coal plants, clean energy standard?

2010-12-15T07:26:00.000-08:00

Good energy news first. Westar has announced that they are further pursuing 369 MW of additional wind power. I think they have semi-announced it before, with varying degrees of certainty. At any rate, getting closer. Lots of permits, etc., to get through first.

Furthermore, there seems to be a ghost in you-know-where's chance that a Clean Energy Standard might maybe possibly somehow please oh please someday, sometime, come out of Congress. Yeah. As per the NYTimes. A Clean Energy Standard (versus a Renewable Energy Standard) would likely include clean coal and nuclear.

It seems a bit of a pity - sure, they can include clean coal, but (a) the technology is highly expensive, and (b) it uses a LOT, LOT, LOT of water, and (c) carbon sequestration is nowhere near as fun as it sounds, it takes an incredible number of injection wells, and you are in essence injecting a very acidic substance. My guess is that (b) and (c) will be ignored, and that taxpayers will subsidize (a).

Pay it through your rates, or pay it through your taxes - when it comes to clean coal, either way (and most likely, both ways) you pay.

Speaking of coal. With heartfelt apologies to all those who tell me how sick they are of hearing about the proposed KS coal plant... it's now a high profile, high value political football, folks. For that reason alone, you are going to continue to hear about it, whatever actually happens to the permit.

A few articles on the general topic of Kansas and GHGs: KS Attorney General-elect Derek Schmidt is not ruling out joining a lawsuit against the EPA regulations on GHGs (Bloomberg/ AP, John Milburn). Sierra Club's Stephanie Cole points out that the regs in question only apply to large emitters.

The KC Star editorial board weighs in on KDHE's rush to process the Sunflower air permit. The 2007 permit review received 800 public comments and took 16 months. The 2010 comment periods (two of them) received over 6,000 comments, and is going to take six months. EPA stands ready to review the permit on several grounds, including KDHE's attention to public comments.

The Wichita Eagle editorial board notes that Colorado is shutting down coal plants and switching to natural gas, even as Kansas puts a rush on a coal plant permit.

My blog stats now tell me that my egg noodle recipe is by far the most popular entry I have ever written, ever, on any blog. Forget energy writing. I'm switching to food.

Food: easy egg noodles (because it's Friday)

2010-12-03T11:07:00.000-08:00

Although I don't know of any complicated recipes for egg noodles, either. This one is easy peasy. There's been a cold making the rounds at our house, so we've been eating a lot of chicken and noodles lately, and a new batch of noodles is needed every few days. Also great for casseroles, beef and noodles, etc.

Ingredients:
- 1 c. all purpose white flour for mixing, plus 3/4 c. flour for rolling
- dash of salt
- one egg - big and fresh as possible (older eggs perfectly fine but dough isn't as tender when cooked)
- up to 1/4 cup milk (whole milk is best, skim is perfectly fine)
- smidgen of olive oil, or any oil (just not safflower, it will "shatter" the dough)

Before you start, make sure you have at least two sheets of wax paper floured and ready to roll. Also find your rolling pin.

Okay, now start. Put 1 cup flour and dash of salt into bowl, make a well. Mix egg, milk, and oil separately. Pour liquids into flour well. Mix with fork. Do not overmix, or noodles will be tough.

Eyeball the dough. Use your judgment. Add more milk if needed. Add more flour if needed, but remember, you will be working in a lot of flour while you roll out the noodles. Since we use wood heat in winter our house is dry and I always need more milk, but never more than the full 1/4 cup.

Using lots of flour, roll 'er out. The dough will be very elastic and will keep retracting on you - springing back - but don't let this tempt you to over-roll it (remember the warning about toughness). Let the dough rest instead, then come back in a minute or so when the gluten isn't as testy. Roll some more, to reach your desired thickness. We like our noodles pretty thin, and they dry faster like that, too.

When the dough is the right thickness, take a fifteen minute break. Come back, and if the edges of the dough are starting to dry out a bit, take a SHARP knife and cut the noodles. If it's too doughy yet, come back later.

Leave it be for a bit. Come back later, break up the noodles, let them dry. If you want to speed up the process, stick them in the oven at 180 degrees for 10 minutes and then check them. Cool and store in fridge.

This recipe comes via both of my grandmothers and my husband's grandmother on his mom's side. They came/ come from Kansas, Ohio, and Missouri, but all three women had pretty much the same recipe.

NOTE: Cooking egg noodles differs by the meal, but homemade noodles are very different than store-bought in that they don't take a whole lot of cooking. Of course this will depend on the thickness of the noodles. For our thinner ones it's fine to bring the liquid to a boil (it should also have a little oil or fat, so noodles don't stick), then dump the noodles in and reduce to simmer. Cook them till you like the texture.

Complicated: Give the people what they want

2010-12-02T07:32:00.000-08:00

unless... you don't really want to...? How does this work?

I mention this because I'm noting some popular reader biases on technical energy topics. People (well, energy folk, maybe this doesn't cover Jane/ Joe Public) - people love to read about wind, transmission, biomass. That's the sexy stuff.

Soil, water, efficiency... not so much.

Time for a bad metaphor. Remember when you first fell in love? No need to go into detail, this is not that kind of blog, but - yeah. You remember how it felt. Well, this is the equivalent of how wind, transmission, and biomass make people feel. These topics are the come-ons, the pheromones, at the leading edge of energy right now.

Fast forward to being married for twenty years or so. Now - I'm very happily married, so I also know how that feels, and let me tell you: The sexy energy topics are great, but my gut is telling me that soil, water, and energy efficiency are what have the real staying power.

Because if we ain't got our approaches to those sorted out, then nothing we do with wind, biomass, or transmission is ultimately going to matter.

Alternative-ish financing for transmission lines?

2010-11-30T10:54:00.000-08:00

Huh.

From TX Energy and Environment blog:

Hunt Consolidated Inc. created two real estate investment trusts amounting to $2.1 billion, but not for the company's property arm.

The Hunt trusts will be the first real estate investment trusts to hold energy assets. One will hold electricity transmission infrastructure and the other will have natural gas pipelines.

The unique investment vehicle allows the company to avoid taxes. It could also draw fresh money into the utility sector at a time when the U.S. needs new transmission lines.

"We were challenged with determining a better way to allow investment to come into the infrastructure grid than currently exists," said Kirk Baker, president of Hunt's two new energy trusts. "I left that meeting and came back, and on my desk was a prospectus for a real estate investment trust. So I asked, why can't we do this?"

A real estate investment trust doesn't pay taxes, so long as it distributes its earnings to shareholders. The investors then pay taxes on their own earnings.

Baker had to get special permission from the Internal Revenue Service, but three years after he spied that prospectus, Baker is doing it.

Four other investors will put money into the Hunt trusts: Marubeni Corp., John Hancock Life Insurance, TIAA-CREF and OPTrust Private Markets Group.

The trusts will buy or build utility projects in Texas and other western states. Texas and the Great Plains states have seen growth in wind farm developments, which require new transmission lines. Hunt would like to build those lines.

"It's in the renewables breadbasket. Also demographically we think those areas will continue to grow," Baker said.

The trust will start by buying a stake in Sharyland Distribution and Transmission Services, a Hunt company that's building power lines in the Panhandle to carry wind power to North Texas. The trust aims to invest in or with other utilities, big and small.

The downside to a real estate investment trust is that it must distribute nearly all profit to shareholders. It cannot use profit to invest in new projects, said Eli Farrar, a partner with law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP.

"But what it does is, it's an attractive way of getting capital at a reasonable cost from investors who are looking for a steady stream of income from reliable investments," said Farrar, who has been following the Hunt trust.

He said more companies will invest in new transmission lines to support wind and solar farms.

"As you see those invest ment companies formed to build that transmission, you will see them consider this. So I think people will be closely watching to see how this one works out," he said.

Lisa Ferraro, managing director for energy and infrastructure at TIAA-CREF, said the Hunt trust gives her another avenue to invest with a private, and very successful, company. The nonprofit retirement company also lends money to Hunt Consolidated, she said.

"You need very good operators in these projects," she said.

Marubeni has also invested with Hunt in the past.

"The REIT structure is exciting and innovative and we think it's sound," said Daniel Welt, vice president of development for the Japanese company. "We think other people are going to follow in the coming years."

Hunt's Baker said there aren't any plans to open the trusts to other investors through intial public offerings.