It’s cold outside, bonsais in the frost (12/27/2022)

I am sure that almost everyone knows by now that we have been in for some amazing weather here in the eastern two thirds of north America. We were hit by the polar vortex and what is called a bombogenesis. It was something that was predicted some time ago, I even wrote about it in a post a week ago and predicted that I might need to write my final year’s post about it. Well, here I go.

My main concern was how the greenhouse would hold up to winds approaching hurricane force and temperatures around 10 degrees Fahrenheit or around -12 degrees Celsius. I have most of my tropical trees in the greenhouse and as you can see in the photograph included with this post, I have two small heaters installed in the place. One heater of 700 watts comes on based on where I set it; while the other is 1200 and is connected to my thermostat which switches it on at 42.5 degrees (or 5.8 C). I think this is still pretty darn cold for some of my trees, and I hoped it works. Before the weather blew in, we had some freezing nights, and the greenhouse could handle it well, eventually putting the nighttime temperatures around 45 to 50 degrees.

With the cold coming in, I was nervous, and I also needed to connect our birth bath heater coil to the same outlet. I had planned to wake up every few hours that first night to make sure all went well. We went to bed at around 11 and the temperatures outside had already dropped to 15. The temperature in the greenhouse was a comfortable 55. I felt good. I woke up at 12:30 checked the temperature in the greenhouse with my remote temperature gauge and it read 29 degrees, 3 degrees below freezing. Holy shit! My trees!

I went on the deck naked (we old hippies still sleep in the nude, but boy it was cold 15 degrees being nude on our deck) to push in the ground fault interrupt that did not do it and then I figured out that it must be the breaker. Back inside I found the tripped breaker, reset it and I noticed that a light in the greenhouse came on. This is an indicator light on the extension cord showing it has power.

Now what triggered this? The only explanation I had is the coil that keeps the bird bath water from freezing. It pulls 200 watts and must have been working overtime. I went back to bed without further thinking about it, but after a brief discussion with my wife we decided that I should unplug the thing and dump the water out of the bath to prevent it from cracking.

So, out of bed and downstairs I went. I pulled on my ski parka over my nude body, slipped on some shoes and stumbled outside in the dark and cold to get the job done. Boy, that was cold on the bare legs, buttocks and elsewhere. I described it to a friend, and he wondered about any shrinkage, honestly, I had no time to think about that issue; in addition, it was way too cold for that, so let’s not go there in this post.

Once reset, within minutes the greenhouse was back above 32. I woke up two additional times that night and the temperatures hovered around 45. In the morning the outside temperature was 7.5 degrees or about -13.6 Celsius.

I am not sure if I lost any plants, time will tell. Now a few days later things still look ok, but you never know. One of the YouTube shows I watch mentioned that ficus trees in particular might not like colder temperatures, and I have at least six different ones in the greenhouse. It looks like one of my hibiscus trees is suffering as well, but I think that was from before the polar vortex.

It is now after Christmas and temperatures are supposed to warm up the next week. The day-time temperatures in the greenhouse topped 70 degrees in the sunshine today. I am pretty happy.

I expect that this will be the last post of 2022. So, folks, I hope you all have a great New Year. I am looking forward to the new year as well.

The interior of the greenhouse on December 18.  You can see the two heaters on the tile, pointing in two different directions.  The small cube is the 700 watts heater and the cream one in front is the stronger one.  I had put the tile and cinderblocks in as heat sinks in the hope to moderate the temperature swings.

Rural development mis-steps (12/19/2022)

I suspected already that my end of year post would not be the last. The reason was that Christmas weekend the nighttime temperatures were going to dip to 18 or so degrees Fahrenheit or almost -8 degrees centigrade. I figured that was probably worth a post on my greenhouse performance and bonsais.

Little did I realize that our Governor would get me riled up in the meantime. I have started to call him tRumpkin; however, his real name of course is Younkin. So, what has Younkin (a.k.a. tRumpkin) been up to this past week to get me back to writing a political post again?

For one, tRumpkin is proposing stricter abortion rules in his new budget. All my readers know that even as a full-blooded male, I am fearlessly in favor of women’s right, and very pro-choice, or better in favor of allowing women to choose what to do to their own body. As you can see in this paragraph, I have written many posts on it and if you like to read more opinions of mine check these out. I will not go into it any further here.

There was another thing that our governor who seems to be completely out of touch with reality wants to do. According to tRumpkin and his Homebuilders’ Association cronies, there seems to be a shortage of affordable housing. Actually, I can somewhat agree with them this far. But now comes where we diverge. In his ultimate stupidity (he thinks it is wisdom) tRumpkin wants to ask/mandate the counties, cities, towns to open their rural areas to smaller lot sizes and thus allow denser development in these areas.

Rural areas around us typically allow lot sized of 3 acres (about 1.2 hectare) or larger. This would allow for the location of a septic system since these rural areas are typically not serviced by public sewer. Moreover, these large lots usually support larger homes that are built by more affluent folks, we often tend to call them MacMansions since they all tend to look somewhat alike or cookie cutter. I am sure that all these richer folks in their four- and five-bedroom homes will welcome a neighborhood with half or quarter acre lots and low to middle income folks nearby. Oh, and maybe some townhouses anyone and a dollar general which is the only place some of these folks can only afford to shop? I am not being disparaging, condescending, or facetious, but I can predict their reaction: “not in my back yard (NIMBY).” Younkin lives on a private 30 acre horse farm in Great Falls, Fairfax County, Virginia. I am sure he will subdivide his land and make it available for the construction of low-income housing.

In addition to this tRumpkin proposed to make all this development a bit easier by relaxing the wetland and other environmental regulations. He saw this one correctly, I teach in my classes that all the easy-to-develop land has already been taken, and the remaining land has issues. It either has horrible soils and cannot infiltrate water and is unsuitable for septic and stormwater management, or is a wetland, you name it, it has issues. So, let’s build these lower income neighborhoods in or near wetland areas or other marginal areas. Wetland areas flood more frequently, who cares a little mold won’t kill them, and if they get sick, that is what we have the emergency rooms for or the 24 hour clinics down in the strip malls. The folks in the MacMansions live high and dry and if something happens to them, God forbid, they have insurance, and the government will bail them out.

Furthermore, let’s not talk about paving over nature in the age of climate change, biodiversity loss, and other environmental disasters (boy, I already wrote about this in 2015). Let’s all migrate to the countryside and pave it over. tRumpkin’s proposal is going to make this all worse. Abandon the inner-city, instead of redeveloping it and making it more livable. More livable inner cities like in Europe would attract younger folks from all walks of life as well as lower income folks. This would work, as long as we make them livable and erase the food deserts that exist in many of our inner cities.

No, Governor Glenn Younkin you are out of touch with reality while living your sheltered life on your 30-acre horse farm. I am sorry, but you are not a man of the people, you are a conservative elite who has never worked a decent job in his life. I want to bet that you do not even know the price of a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread or a bale of hay for your horses.

This red oak grows in the Colonial Battlefield National Park.  It is one of the stately trees grows in a grove.  It is actually one of the smaller ones, but what impressed me on the morning I took this picture was the shadows on the trunk that shows the live veins which are a sign of advanced age or development.  Thank goodness, Glenn Younkin's proposals cannot harm this grove; however, if it depends on him, these trees would go to the lumber mill or worse the paper plant and the area would become another subdivision.

December 2022 (12/15/2022)

December: it is that time of the year again. Many of the “How to blog” websites tell you it is time to write a year in review post. Should I, or shouldn’t I? I am writing this as I am sitting in my hotel room in Lynchburg, under much better circumstances than my last visit to the area around the end of March. It was the same day we put our dog Jake to sleep, and I had a rough time driving and staying here. I drank and ate too much that evening, and it wasn’t even satisfying. Oh well, isn’t that the case that many drunks or overeaters feel afterwards? Did I learn anything from that? Tonight, I did, I just had one and a half beer and some nice Japanese food. Back in my room before 7 and now behind the keyboard.

While I am not sure if I will publish this post tonight or even during my stay here in Lynchburg tonight or tomorrow evening, I do feel compelled to write a little bit about the year and about life in general. Life this year has been good. We are back from COVID (although I read it is back in an upswing); we are wondering at times if we had it in June when we suffered from a summer cold but tested negative, once. I decided to take part in a medical experiment and took an experimental RSV vaccine. Our daughter got married and we are still paying for it. Oh well, it was worth it and fun. A week before the wedding we moved my 95-year-old father-in-law from independent living to assisted living. In other words, July was an absolute blur. It was an insane three weeks for us, but it was Nietzsche (I think) who said, “What does not kill me, makes me stronger.” We definitely gained a lot of strength in July, and we are still drinking wedding beer, or better I am using it as the liquid in some of the bread I am baking, in particular my rye bread.

From this year’s posts you can see that I still travel for work and teach. Again, today my supervisor wanted to know how long he can still rely on my or in other words, when I will retire. Loyal readers know that I struggle with this. I enjoy teaching, but then I feel I also need to spend more time with my bonsai trees. I have a greenhouse now, and it looks like that I am getting more serious about those darn little trees. Yes, I have been dabbling around with them for the past 34 years, and in a way, so little to show for. For all those years, I should have had some magnificent trees; but I have ignored them for extended periods during those years. They were pot bound and that does not help their development.

So yes, I am still kicking and screaming, working, complaining that I am getting old and decrepit, politically active, baking bread, hiking, forest bathing, and bonsai growing. I love my beers, although it seems that my taste is changing from IPAs to black lagers. I am getting bored with American restaurant food (I assume that this is because I am eating out so much during my travels) and I am starting to like Japanese food best.

While not a true a look back on the past year, I hope this is somewhat of a review of my life to-dated. As I alluded to in a similar post last year, maybe it isn’t very Buddhist to look back (and live or dwell in the past). It may be better to live in the present and prepare for the road ahead. As I recently mentioned, I am in a good place mentally, I have been feeling happy lately. Hopefully 2023 will be as good or even better. But who knows, I might get inspired to write another post this year. Cheers!

Having breakfast at the hotel (The Virginian by Hilton in Lynchburg).  This is absolutely a nice hotel.  I visited two microbreweries: 3 Roads which was OK and Star Hill, a satalite brewery from the main one in the Charlottesville area which was great.  Lunch was in Rustburg and dinner at El Jefes Tacos (good) and Mizumi Japanese Bistro (absolutely great). 

I am happy to be alive and happier than a clam (11/29/2022)

Strange title to this post, isn’t it? Today, during my morning walk in the woods with the dogs I was overcome by this feeling of extreme happiness and contentment. I was feeling happier than I could remember ever feeling before; even during my daughter’s wedding a few months ago, although I felt pretty damn happy then, but also full of anticipation, thinking about everything to come the rest of the day.

Come to think of it, this was probably one of the happiest moments in my life. So, what brought this on? I am not on drugs, and as I mentioned in numerous posts of mine, I am not particularly depressed or optimistic. Neither am I a pessimist or optimist. Well, thinking about it during my walk, I concluded I was happy to be alive, and even that thought did not bring me down!

Let me explain.

Bad news abounds, three mass-shootings lately, two of which were here in Virginia and one in Colorado Springs. My wife and I were talking about the shooting in Colorado Springs and how a brave guy put himself at risk and stopped the shooter. We were talking about “What would you do” in such a situation. Armchair quarterbacking is easy, but my first reaction was that I would not hesitate and try to stop the shooter. As I explained to her, I survived at least four episodes where I should have been killed by a gun in Uganda, but somehow escaped it, and once by a natural disaster in Nepal. While I am not invincible, I have been so lucky to have lived through these episodes and survived this long. Therefore, it would be ok if someone gets me, if I can save someone else’s life; I lived a full life already. The thought of that full life did it to me, it made me realize what a great life I have led, and I should be happy.

Now I was walking with my dogs today. In winter we usually we take one of two routes. One takes us behind our home through the woods and then back to the neighborhood to the front of our home. This is about a mile and a quarter long walk. The other one starts out the same way but veers off into a trail that eventually leads you to what I consider to be a piece of relatively old growth forest with huge oaks and yellow popular trees. The stand has an understory of pawpaws and maples. That route is slightly longer and is only in nature.

My plans today were to walk around to the front as we call it. However, the dogs had another idea. They wanted to take a left into the woods to the old growth, my favorite area and surely theirs as well. This time we walked a bit further than usually because it felt so good. The dogs walked calmly, and we were just enjoying ourselves. It was then that this feeling of extreme joy came over me and it has not left me. I was in a high of the woods, the sights and the thoughts.

Researchers talk about how important forest bathing is for your wellbeing. The looks, the sounds (or the lack of them), and the smells, the phytoncides are so good for your health, mind, blood pressure, and overall wellbeing. It seems that one walk in the woods can last weeks. I sometimes have two or three walks in the woods each day. I wish they were cumulative; I would have enough for the rest of my life. Let’s just hope I can capture this happy feeling for a bit longer.

This photograph of the old growth was taken a week ago.  My wife can be seen in the middle of the trail.  You can see the beauty and size of the trees.  

Natural turnover everywhere in these woods.  Mushrooms are active all over the place.  I just love looking exploring and just taking it all in.

A quick after remark.  This past evening ( the evening after publishing this post) we were walking the dogs, and I saw two falling stars in a row.  The both radiated from the direction of Mars.  The first shot right into the constellation of the Gemini, almost directly towards Castor and Pollux.  The special thing is that I am a Gemini and have an affinity to those two stars.  The second meteor shot away less than a minute about 90 degrees away from the first towards to tip of Orion.  Absolutely a great ending on an already great day.

Thankful that nature is part of us (11/23/2022)

Of late, I have become increasingly introspective. Whether that a sign of the changing seasons and the approaching solstice, Christmas, and New Year, or just a sign of aging and the approaching consideration of retiring, I really don’t know and couldn’t care less. As my regular readers know, when I become more introspective, I start asking the perpetual question: Why the hell, am I writing this blog? I have seen so many blogs or bloggers who quit after so many years. Is it worth those measly 200+ readers every month? Last month I had 224 hits and this month I am already up to 374 hits; the average this year is 205). As you can see, I am no influencer, nor did I ever intent to be one. I have nothing to sell or to give away right now. If you want me to sponsor or promote you or your product, we can talk I would not mind. I have bought and used products from various bonsai suppliers and maybe one day I’ll write a review about what I like and what I did not.

Early on this blog was meant to document my travels through Virginia as an instructor. I had learned to love this state and discovered all it’s beauty. Having studied photography in the past and giving it up as a serious hobby or even as a possible profession, I felt this was a way of rekindling it. Soon the captions with the photographs started taking over and I felt I had so much more to say that could accompany those photographs; the story behind the photographs, the items that I could not capture, things on my mind. If you are a regular reader, you have seen me mention that before. This blog became a diary of sorts, a reflection of my thinking at times, a travel log, my political rant, and as I mentioned in my last post my way of trying to educate, maybe one or two readers so now and then, or at least help them think critically.

But I do not write every waking moment of my life. So, what do I do in my spare time, when it is either dark outside, when I don’t work, don’t write these damn posts, walk my dogs, work on my bonsai trees, cook, or bake bread? Notice I left out any water-based activities like kayaking and sailing as well as biking! Somehow, I need to get back into them, but I have not sailed or kayaked for a long time. Ever since I broke my wrist, I have shied away from biking, although my wrist is completely healed. Then to hear folks near us were killed while riding bikes and broke all kinds of bones. That does not help us getting back on the bikes. But I increased my time dedicated to the environment, nature, and my bonsai.

The real answer is, I watch a lot of YouTube videos, read blogs, and listen to podcasts. My wife and I keep telling each other that we need a life, and we should go see a movie or watch a TV show, so we can talk “intelligently” with friends and colleagues about current cultural things.

What I am trying to convey here is my love for the world. The YouTubes and podcasts mostly deal with nature, science, and human interaction. Few of the latest ones I took in was the YouTube video by Mirai on Ryan’s creation of the different U.S. forests. I also listened to his interview with folks who climb the big trees in California for research as part of the forest creation; this was on his Asymmetry podcast. Both were great. While I already know this, I appreciate more and more the fact that I am part of nature and that I can not function without it. I need it to recharge; when I walk in the woods, I need to touch a tree trunk with my bare hands, feel it, be one with it, be one with nature.

Truthfully, we are part of nature, and that is very important to remember. The natural world does not care who we are, what we look like, what we wear or even what are political leaning is. I keep reminding myself of that and the need to honor all species (although maybe not the roaches and mosquitoes that invade our home at times). But what I am trying to say is that with my forest bathing, with my walks in nature, with my bonsai and trying to recreate those old trees, and just being in the moment, I am aware that I am part of a whole, a minute part of this earth. That is what I have been realizing more and more these past few months.

I was reading an on-line article which discusses the fact that without life in general, this earth would not exist. There would not be limestone, or even soil, both of which are formed by life. Organic matter would not exist, carbon without life? You get the message? The earth would look like Mars. Damn, an interesting concept, isn’t it? The earth and the evolution on it formed life (read us), and life is part of the formation or evolution of the earth. We all affect each other. Now in the Anthropocene the impact of humans seems to be accelerated and not in a positive way (I know, here I go again, and I’ll stop).

But all you, my 200+ readers of my posts sit back, take a deep breath, and think about it. You are part of nature and nature is part of you! With everything you are doing you are impacting the Earth and you can choose whether that is mostly positive or negative. The Earth will give you the same treatment in return since it is part of you. The problem is that it is also part of your children, grand-children, and generations to come. They bare the consequences of our actions or inaction. Introspective anyone?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I had to steal this picture from the Rodin museum in Paris.  I visited it in 1976 and need to do it again soon.  But this is probably how I currently feel the most, contemplative.