Author: turndoozie

Well, the orange one is gone. Four years of mismanagement, lying, bullying, and criminal acts are over. The saps he conned will never believe he lost, but that’s why con games work. There will always be those that lack the intelligence or desire to see through a con. He told them what they wanted to hear, and they were more than happy to believe him. And be damned to all that would actually have the gall to present them with a verifiable fact. But. at least now dignity and sensibility will reign for a few years. With the possible exception of Mitch McConnell.

We’ve had a traveling January so far, as best as can be expected during a pandemic. We started the new year in Marquette and the UP. A place both Lise and I love. regardless of the season. Places above the 45^th parallel, and the people that live in those places, are different. There’s a toughness and an edge to them that you don’t find in the temperate latitudes. For instance, if you want to see bird species that winter in the UP, you have to take on the winter. That’s why we started a hike in the McCormick Wilderness looking for boreal chickadees when the temperature was -3 Fahrenheit. We’re talking snot freezing cold here. That might seem harsh, but at the trailhead we met people going out to bring in the new year camping. As in snowshoeing into the backcountry and camping, not sleeping in a camper at a campground camping. Now that’s tough.

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We were only back from Marquette for a couple days when Lise had to attend a four day in-person workshop at Poakagon State Park. I tagged along to play in the park a little. All told it was kind of a bust. They had snow, then a thaw, then a freeze. That made the trails something resembling a luge track. Great for sliding really fast, but not so great for hiking.

Once we got back from Pokagon, we decided it was best to isolate as best we can. On the spur of the moment, we figured we can isolate at the trailer in Delaware as well as our house in West Lafayette. And have a lot more opportunity for outdoor activities. So here we are in Delaware. Eating crab cakes and rapidly upping our yearly bird list. We’re now over eighty species. And getting to watch tRump fly away. Life is good.

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The last day of the year finds us staying at our friend Joanna’s cabin near Marquette, Michigan. We have been relaxing and enjoying the area. Birding, hiking, and just soaking up the north woods. What more could one ask?

We ended the year with respectable yearly bird lists. Lise had 33 species and I had 329. Fueled in large part by our pre-COVID trip to Belize. Something that will not be repeated in the near future. Tomorrow starts a new year and we will be off and running. Actually driving. We will do an Eastern Upper Peninsula run that will be about ten hours of driving.

Not much else to say except that 2020 is finally drawing to a close. This is not one of the best years I have lived through. Not that 2021 will be a cakewalk. It’s going to take the better part of a year for the country to see the end of the COVID crisis. And probably several years to recover from the economic and social turmoil that came with COVID. The acrimony of the last election cycle, driven in large part by that pathetic specimen of humanity that is our current president, will also take some time to die off. Like most diseases.

Time does in fact heal most wounds. I equate the year 2020 to drinking a bottle of Mogen David MD 2020, (a.k.a. Mad Dog 2020 in my younger days). It may hurt for a while after the deed is done, but eventually you get better. And please let the record show that I haven’t done anything like that since my Navy days about 45 years ago.

So, here’s to a better year.

With due deference to Clement Moore

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,
Nothing was stirring, it’s just me and the spouse,
The stockings were mailed out, for those that we care.
Molly, Mitchell, and Lindsay, wish we were there.
I’m sure they’re nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of scrapple dance in their heads.

The boss in her PJs, and I with a nightcap,
Just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap—.
When deep in my brain there arose such a clatter,
I sprang to my feet, to determine the matter.

Synapsis were firing, a spark and a flash,
Thoughts were appearing, then gone in a dash.
My memories were swirling like new falling snow,
Why nothing seemed right, I just didn’t know.

My thoughts were gelling, the first to appear,
The COVID pandemic, defining the year.
But good thoughts were coming, ever so quick,
Oh yes, the cocktails, they became my new shtick.

More rapid than eagles, the cocktails they came,
I learned them and mixed them and called them by name.
Now Sidecar, now Southside, now Old Pablano,
A Vesper, a Fireside, try an Americano.
Sweeteners and bitters, with good alcohol,
A dash in them, dash in them, dash in them all.

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
The COVID it spread, hitting low and high.
2020 was bad, and pleasures were few.
But despite the ugly, good things happened too.

Since January’s dreary, even with no disease.
We had to escape the deep winter freeze.
With Molly and Mitchell, to Belize we flew,
For a lovely vacation, with our whole crew.
Snorkeling with nurse sharks, big as the humans.
Swimming through caves to see Mayan ruins.
Birding with guides, their skill left us in awe.
A hundred and seventeen species we saw.
We had a great time, all was perfect and right,
Except maybe Molly, and her pelican bite.
Then disease started raging, but we did persevere,
And we did what we could, in a right dismal year.
Molly passed orals, now a doctoral candidate.
But still several more years before she can graduate.
Mitchell is working, and wood turning for fun.
He makes lovely things and has only begun.
Lindsay is working, in a full-time position.
Not really her calling, so it’s just a transition.
She’s heard the call and it’s teaching says she.
If the planets align, in grad school she’ll be.

The orange one has lost, the world can rejoice.
Though he says not, it was the people’s choice.
We needed a leader to fight the dread COVID.
His pathetic response got him outvoted.

2020’s been hard, at times very black.
We’re tired and weary, we want our lives back.
But the vaccines are coming, an end is in sight.
So happy Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Thanksgiving Day, close to the ocean in Lewes Delaware.

We have a lot to be thankful for. We haven’t been hit hard by COVID, at least not yet. We’re having Thanksgiving with Molly and Mitchel, two of our favorite people in the world. We’re close to the ocean for this week or so. And tRump will soon be out of office. Life is good.

This has been a strange year. We had high hopes for travel, both planned trips and spontaneous travels. We started great with a January trip to Belize with Molly and Mitchell. Major fun and great birding. A kick-butt way to start the yearly birding list. With our move to Indiana we were going to hit every Indiana State Park. Surely was going to be a great birding year and photography year. And then along came COVID.

COVID has changed lives, ours and many others. The U.S. is now at over 263,000 COVID deaths, and it ain’t done yet. Our travel has been greatly restricted and we’re much more just careful about where we go and where we stay. Spontaneous going out to pubs, restaurants, or concerts is a distant memory. We must wear masks whenever we’re around other people. We dropped our gym membership because it was an unsafe environment. We limit our contacts with other people. But these things are mostly irritants. At least we haven’t lost any family members to COVID. We haven’t lost jobs. We don’t have to worry about making car payments or rent or mortgage payments. And most importantly, our immediate family seems to be weathering the pandemic in good shape. I can’t ask for more than that. That my friends, makes for a thankful Thanksgiving Day.

A couple pictures of the St. Louis Arch from a trip to see Stefan, Kasey, and Ava a couple weeks ago.

Not too much to report since my last posting.

We did a trip to Delaware for a couple week that also included a weekend up in Philly, a few hours at Hawk Mountain, and a night at my sister Lynn’s house in Jonestown, Pa.

In Philly, Molly and Mitchell have moved into a new apartment. It’s a nice third floor corner apartment on South Street, the southern border of Philly’s historic Seventh Ward. The Seventh Ward is where W.E.B. DuBois did his pioneering sociological study titled “The Philadelphia Negro”. The area is now very integrated, and the term gentrified might be appropriate. As an added bonus they are right by the childhood home of Larry Fine, famous as Larry of the Three Stooges.

One night, Molly and Mitchell asked if we wanted to see a great view of the nighttime Philadelphia skyline. Who wouldn’t? To get to the view you have to crawl out a bedroom window to a ledge, scuttle across the steep roof of the building next door, grab onto a chimney, use the chimney to swing up onto a less steep roof, then go across that roof to a flat roof. If you go along one side of the steep roof, it’s a three story drop to the street. If you along the other side, there’s only about a 20-foot drop to a neighbor’s deck. Falling to the deck would be bad enough. Then you have to explain to them how you happened to fall from heaven and land on their deck and ask them to let you go through their apartment to get back to the street. Molly and Mitchell do this jaunt with chairs and drinks to enjoy the view. Who wants life to be boring?

Not too much to report from Delaware. We got new a floor laid in the trailer. And, we had a midnight visit from two baby opossums in our bedroom closet. Run of the mill events in a Delaware trailer park.

I did something today that I have never done before. Today was Indiana’s early voting day and Lise and I both voted. For the first time in over 40 years of voting I voted a straight ticket. And it was not for the party of tRump. I never thought I would vote a straight ticket in my life, but I am so disgusted with the Republican party that I can’t in good conscience vote for anyone running as a Republican. After this election Democrats do not have a lock on my vote, but I seriously doubt I will ever vote for a Republican again.

A year ago today my brother Rich and I summited Mt. Katahdin, finishing my Appalachian Trail thru hike. Completing a thru hike is pretty much an all-consuming effort during the hike and the completion of something I wanted to do for 50 years. So, what comes next?

I’ve been busy the past year. Maybe too busy. We moved to West Lafayette. We made several trips to Delaware, where I’m writing from now. A trip or two to St. Louis. I’ve spent a good bit of time getting the new house changed to being our house. Some time trying to get my shop up to speed. A lot of time fixing up the trailer in Delaware. So, I’ve been busy with physical activities, but not so much with activities that require an intellectual or emotional investment. I’ve gotten some woodworking and photography done, but not the amount I expected to be doing. And I’ve done pathetically little reading and writing. My lack of blog posts is a testimony to that.  

A friend of Lise and Gretchen’s works at hostels along the AT. I met her in Millinocket, Maine, at the end of my hike. She is very familiar with the AT, and the culture of the AT. Recently she came and stayed at our trailer in Delaware.  

She asked me an interesting question. Did I, or do I, feel post-trail depression? The question caught me a little off guard. Apparently, post-trail depression is a common thing, and she knows of several post thru hike suicides. She was putting together a workshop about the issue for The Gathering, before it was cancelled because of COVID.

I can see how depression could become an issue after a thru hike. The morning after summitting Katahdin we were eating in a Millinocket restaurant. Next to us was a table of thru hikers that summited when I did. All were considerably younger than I. Several of them I had known since early in the hike. We thru hikers just spent an all-consuming five and a half months slogging from Georgia to Maine. And now we were done. They were all feeling good; chatting and joking until someone said, “OK, now what”? The response was dead silence and blank stunned expressions. A couple of them went pale. What comes next never appeared on the agenda. I had a house and a trailer to work on, so I had plenty to occupy my time. It was obvious none of them had a clue as to what they would do next.

Depression is a rather harsh word for my post trail feelings, but there is something of a void. Something is missing. A lack of purpose maybe? The mundane just doesn’t seem that important. I wanted to do the AT for about 50 years. There was an emotional commitment to doing a thru hike. It was always hanging over me, and now I’ve done it. So, it does beg the question, what’s next? What am I working towards? Besides a one-way ticket to being on the wrong side of the grass. I’m staying busy, I have no problem filling my time. But I don’t feel an emotional commitment to fixing up a trailer or working on a house. It’s just something you do. Or anyone can do.

I don’t want to do the AT again, but I admit, there’s a pull. I miss the emotional commitment to completing a thru hike. I need something like that to keep me mentally engaged and sane. While on the AT, I met several people that have done multiple thru hikes. Sometimes back-to-back. They thru hiked in 2018 and were doing it again in 2019. I thought there was something wrong with them. Something was missing, they had no life. Now I’m starting to understand. It’s not that they don’t have a life. The AT is their life, their home, their friends, and their family. That’s not what I want. I have a home and a great family and friends that I have always been emotionally committed to. That’s not a problem. What I must do is make myself put some intellectual and emotional commitment into other directions and pastimes that will fill the void left by completing a 50-year quest.

Following are a few photos tken recently.

Not too much going on since my last post. The one single thing that has occupied most of my time has been processing wood. My neighbor had a large red oak tree removed. For starters, the removal process provided some great entertainment. The trimmer didn’t use a lift or cherry picker. He climbed the tree, wrapped ropes around a tall branch, and tied himself in. He would tie a rope around the branch to be cut, swing the rope around another branch to act as a pivot point, wrap the rope around the tree trunk, and his helpers would pull om the rope. Then he would lean over and use a chainsaw with one hand to cut the branch. It would sing around the pivot point branch and his helpers would lower it. Really slick. I had a few productive things planned for the day, but this show was way more fun.

Notice the trimmer in the orange circle. I used to do mountaineering and rock climbing. I’m not afraid of heights, but my climbing didn’t involve one handed use of a chain saw.

Then things got even better. The tree trimmers let me scrounge as much wood as I wanted. The more I took, the less they had to haul away. The wood isn’t good for boards, but it is excellent stock for turning on a lathe. So, I scored a bunch of it for Mitchell to turn. The only downside is that the wood has to be processed for drying as soon as possible. Some pieces were huge and had to be cut to manageable sizes. To minimize cracking and splitting while drying, the pith must be cut out, and the end grain sealed with wax. Ideally the same day the wood is first cut. Being a one man show with a dinky little 16 inch electric chain saw, that ain’t gonna happen. I’ve been making progress but it’s slow back hurting work.

My current time sink.

We also did a trip to St. Louis to deliver planters I made for Stefan and Kasey. Happily they fit right into place. But, most importantly, we got some major play time with the adorable baby Ava. Who calls me Uncle Eg. I am smitten to say the least.

Ava

Between to wood cutting and our trip to St. Louis, what isn’t getting done is cocktailing, woodworking, or photography. We did get out to see the comet Neowise. That was pretty cool. Much better show than Halley’s Comet on its last trip through the neighborhood.

 

 

 

I need to apologize to readers of this blog. I just have not been able to get a blog post up. Maybe I’m down about losing the ant war.

So where does the time go? One would think that the Covid related slowdowns would provide me plenty of writing time. Somehow, the opposite is true. It’s not like I’m taking our lizard’s approach to life. Covid hasn’t affected him in the least. He spends maybe a day getting warm, eating a bit, and wandering around the house. Then he finds a cool dark place and hunkers down for a week at a time. No food, no water, no movement. He can easily spend a week in the same awkward position without moving a muscle. Occasionally opening an eye to look at us in disdain when we check on him. This boy gives new meaning to the term “lounge lizard”.

He spent five days like this.

No, I’ve been nothing but busy during the Covid time. I should clarify. I’ve been busy with hands-on things. I rotate through projects where I try to do a house project, then something for the shop, and then a woodworking project. There are plenty of other distractions too, like a trip to Delaware to work on the trailer, some occasional photography, trying to learn bagpipes, and learning new cocktails. The latter two seem to pair well I might add.

Flower boxes I made for Stefan and Kasey. The short ones are five feet long, the longer ones six and a half feet. Made from cedar.

I made a hardwood mallet for cracking ice. Bloodwood and white ash.

A couple cheese boards I made from the same glue up. I did these to get my tools set up, practice with thicker stock, and learn to rout curves. The curves were more difficult than I thought, and the piece is a slight bit smaller than originally planned because of mistakes. Maple, walnut, and cherry.

Yellow-rumped warbler.

Tree swallows.

Swamp sparrow.

Eastern wood peewee,

Palm warbler.

Northern waterthrush.

American rubyspot damselfly

Widow skimmer dragonfly.

What I haven’t been doing is putting any time into more cerebral things. Like reading, or writing, or just taking time to ponder life in general. My communication to the outside world has mainly been the occasional quick Facebook post about new cocktails. And to blast a few high school classmates that are now Facebook “friends” about their racist and conspiracy posts. Surprisingly, none of them have unfriended me yet. I’m guessing they don’t know how to unfriend someone. They probably figure they’re stuck with what they view as a flaming liberal challenging them for the rest of their lives. One of them actually “liked” a couple of my challenges to her posts, which make me think she hasn’t actually read what I posted.

So, I’ve made a commitment to myself to get more disciplined about both reading and writing. I’m finishing up reading E.O. Wilson’s “The Diversity of Life” and getting this long overdue post up are steps in that direction.

 

Hard to believe it’s been two weeks since I’ve last posted. One would think that being in a quasi-lockdown there was plenty of time for writing. Time is there, topics are the issue. In my life right now there’s a distinct lack of new material to write about. There’s always the ineptness of our current president which supplies a wealth of material. Too many other people are doing a good job there though. No need to add to that rich body of work.

Times not dragging by like I’m in prison or watching the movie Cats. We go for walks, do some birding, I’m getting my shop up to speed and getting reacquainted with the power tools, learning to make cocktails, doing some volunteer mapping of COVID-19 testing sites. Limiting trips makes it a little more difficult to get things done. I can’t just run down to the lumbar yard if I need more wood or a new router bit. By far and large we are getting by.

There’s the ant wars too, but I’m afraid that’s a lost cause. For three days there was nary an ant to be seen on the kitchen counter. I cleaned up the boric acid no man’s land and put the counter back to normal, thinking we had won. Mistake. Like thinking you can win a land war in Asia. For a few hours everything seemed fine, a nice orderly counter and no ants. Like we finally beat them back. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, we were overrun by hordes of ants running back and forth in straight lines like they knew just where to go. I was ready to strike an agreement that would allow disengagement with honor, but Lise went nuclear and called an exterminator. They came and sprayed, but we have to wait ten days to see who really own.

No man’s land, ant free for three days.

The short lived nice clean counter.

Learning the cocktails has been interesting. I’ve taken the tack of making my own syrups, mixers, and liqueurs instead of using commercial products. Like making my own tonic for gin and tonics, or my own ginger syrup to use in Moscow Mules. I’m still lacking some equipment and ingredients to go big time, but I am learning basics. There is a science to good cocktails, including psychology. Presentation matters. If people like what they see, they’re more likely to enjoy the taste. Technique is way more important than I had thought. I always thought the James Bond “shaken, not stirred”, was hubris. But there are differences between the two techniques in time to cool the drink, amount of dilution, and the amount of air bubbles in the drink. Who would have thought?

Since my last post we have tried Gin and Tonics, Mojito, Daiquiri, Limontini, Hot Toddy, Dark and Stormy, Mai-Tai, Michalada, Lillet Tonique, and the non-alcoholic Grapefruit-Rosemary Spritzer. All good and distinctly potable. When the lockdown is over I’ll get some proper glasses and work more on presentation.

 

 

 

Not too much going on in our lives, or anyone else’s life I assume. The lizard is taking the stay in place business to heart. He’s spent the past two days under a nightstand, doing his part to fight the COVID 19 virus.

Rover ignoring everything.

AT least things in the cocktail world are picking up. Some of my syrups and liqueurs are becoming ready so I’ve made my first cocktails with my own ingredients. Moscow Mules and Black Russians. Kind of a Cold War theme. The Moscow Mules use a homemade ginger syrup made with raw ginger root. I didn’t have copper mugs handy, but a Collin’s glass is perfectly acceptable. The Black Russians are not your typical bar drink with vodka, Kahlua, and a dash of cola for color and sweetness. I use a homemade coffee liqueur with vodka and no cola. Potent and potable.

Moscow Mules.

Black Russians.

The ant wars turned ugly. I thought we had them beaten back. Then they launched a feint on our flanks in the garage, hitting the recyclables. I fell for the feint and then they went with a full tilt boogie frontal assault back on the kitchen counters. We finally slowed their assault but now we’re stuck in a trench warfare stalemate situation with no end in sight. I’m starting to think about a peace with honor exit now.

Ants making a frontal assault on the counter.