Hunting and gathering

In our modern existence, some individuals tend to be more closely related to much older traditions of providing sustenance for themselves and their families.  When I lived in Juneau, I had a dislike for the practice of "snagging" fish.  It just seemed so unsportsmanlike.

You have these huge heavily weighted treble hooks (some jokers call them grey flies) that you are trying to embed in the flesh of the salmon so that you can quickly haul them to shore and dispatch them.  There is no subtlety in this method of fishing, there is very little chance that the fish will not be maimed once it is hit.  Of course this method is only allowed in terminal fisheries where the fish is going to die anyway.

The place in Juneau where you see this method used most often is near the hatchery.  The fish are heading back there because they can smell and remember the water where they were born.  These guys are not truly wild fish, but they try and act like their completely wild cousins.  They think if they get as close to the fish ladder into the hatchery, they will be able to spawn and have their progeny continue the tradition of salmon migrations and the circle of life.  The ones who make it up the fish ladder just get milked for sperm or have their eggs harvested, which is probably about as painful as getting gobbled up by a hungry bear, but at least your kids have a better chance of making it back out to the ocean one day.

Bears are very picky about the fish they eat (when those fish are abundant).  They will generally not take the nearly dead spawned out fish, they want the firmer flesh of the ones who have not yet spawned.  You often just see most of the carcass lying on the ground, because the bear has taken the tasty morsels and left the rest of the body there to rot and attract flies.

But back to human fishing, "snagging" is very efficient.  All the fish are crowded in the area near the entrance to the fish ladder, so at the height of the return, you are assured of getting a fish if you can find a space to cast your line.  If you are fishing to feed your family, you want to get your fish as quickly as possible, so you can get back to other pursuits.

borrowed from http://www.headwatersoutfitters.com/fly-fishing.html

Given that I spent my entire childhood living in the suburbs (except the summers which we spent fishing, clamming and sunning ourselves on the beach at my grandparents' house on an island), and my psyche is dominated by some crazy notion that everything must be FAIR, I am drawn to a more relaxed manner of fishing.  [The picture above is a lovely brown trout from North Carolina.]

As a kid I spent a lot of time in the row boat with my brother and grandpa jigging for flounder, or at the state pier trying to get a striper (a.k.a. striped bass) but normally ending up with a squawking sea robin, but as an adult with too much disposable income for my own good, I have gotten into fly fishing.  There is something very primal about getting in tune with the tides and getting up early in the morning, sometimes even before the sun is up, so that you can be at the mouth of the creek at just the right time to try and entice a beautiful dolly varden to gulp the fly you have provided for their consideration.

I have had some very calming zen like experiences up to my waist in chilly water, rhythmically swaying my rod back and forth in an attempt to get the fly in just the right location to encourage the fish to strike.  If they are already at the point where they are no longer eating, you are most likely out of luck, as they will probably only attack the fly if they are annoyed.

That reminds me, I have some mostly dead canadian night crawlers in the fridge that need to get wet later today!  You don't always have to get out the fly fishing gear, but you do have to use your resources wisely (and get your fishing license, or my wildlife cop friends will come and find you......)

Attack of the killer cukes!

Because my hubby was going to be away in AK for most of the summer, he kindly built me a small raised bed in the backyard so I could try my hand at a vegetable garden.

Last time we had an official garden was in MA, two moves ago.  That one started out as a rock garden with ornamental plants, then some of the compost we were generating had acorn squash seeds in it, so we had all sorts of volunteer squashlings one year.  That encouraged me to put a few more fruits/veggies in the next year, so the rocks had to share space with cantaloupes and the like.  That house also had a small herb garden off the back porch.

The engineer I live with was disturbed by having flowers and food sharing the same space, so he made a rule about having only veggies or fruit in this new garden.  (he made a rule about weeding while he was gone as well, but I don't remember signing any paperwork, so ......)

Given the cars in the driveways of the current neighborhood we live in (let's just say that our two nearly 10 year old japanese cars make us look like bumpkins who do not belong), I do not believe that many of our immediate neighbors have veggie gardens.  The folks across the street are an exception.  The houses are so big that you cannot easily look into people's backyards, so I have no easy way to confirm this by walking around the neighborhood and not getting to meet some of the local police officers.....

I learned some lessons about some things growing faster than others, overcapacity, and what the local varmints like to eat.  The biggest lesson has been not to plant so many cucumbers!!!

Either the soil/compost was incredibly rich, or the gardner was incredibly skilled, or the combination of really hot temps and a reliable sprinkler system did the trick with these behemoths, I am not sure which.

The hubster had the great idea of making the bed almost 2 feet high instead of just 8 inches or so, and the topsoil he got was incredibly rich.  This, and some other kind of rookie veggie-only gardner magic has resulted in the monster cucumbers pictured above.

I will be eating cucumber sandwiches until November!

Lactivism

I was hanging out with some work friends at a party, and a group of women were congregating underneath a tent-like thing waiting for a big rain storm to pass through the area.

I think we were talking about struggles with weight loss, and one woman started talking about how the pounds just poured off while she was breastfeeding.  She explained how she became a 'lactivist' on behalf of some of the junior women at her command when their male supervisors were not being very sympathetic about the need to express milk every few hours.

[borrowed from http://www.sierraclubgreenhome.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/water-bottle-baby-bottle.jpg]

They did not understand why they had to provide a separate private clean location for this purpose.  "Why can't they just do it in the bathroom?" one man in need of a little sensitivity training said to my colleague.  Most of the younger guys were much more sympathetic, and they cleaned out a portion of the common fridge so that the breast milk would have a place to be stored during the work day.

At my last unit, I gave up my private office for a pending reorganization of a bigger joint work space, which freed up another office to be used as the official lactation room.  We all helped to clear out the office furniture, and I went in one day to see what had been moved back in.  I was horrified to see a scary government issued arm chair filled with at least two decades of dust mites and coffee stains was the only thing to sit on in the room.

The next day I brought in a bentwood rocker, cleanly laundered pillow and throw and some artwork that we did not have wall space to accommodate at our house.  The two young moms that were using the space were very grateful.  We banished the yucky chair.

Unfortunately the room became an office once again, as the breastfeeding moms were transferred to new cities the same time that I left Alaska, and none of the remaining coastie women needed the room.

I gave the artwork to some people in the building, and the rocker came with us to Michigan, along with the satisfaction of having helped some of my co-workers nourish their young ones!

Freshwater species propagation

It is a good thing I am getting ready to retire, because I may be propagating invasive species in two of our aquatic environments.  If you look a few blogs back, you will be able to read the story of the unintended invasive purchase I made at a local pet shop.

Last weekend I informed the pet shop manager about the invasiveness of the cute little snails, and he seemed honestly horrified.  Since the little buggers are not illegal in Michigan, I went ahead and bought another one of these snails because I am just fascinated with them.  This snail I named Scar (or S-car) based on the recommendation of a goofy friend who thought it would be fun to be able to say, "Look at that S-car GO!"  I couldn't resist.....

borrowed from http://www.tacomalakes.org/images/831_Mystery_Snail.jpg

The day after I made that purchase, I noticed another snail in the Fluval Edge aquarium.  It did not really resemble the trapdoor guys in terms of shell shape, so it is possible that it was a stow away on one of the aquatic plants that are also in that aquarium.

Later this week I found some even smaller snails, about the size of a nail head, in that same environment.  UH OH!!!

I have no idea what sex Pat and Scar are, and it is possible that one of them was harboring the little ones way before it came to our house, but you never know.

Please check back for snail gestational updates in the coming months!

Fridge Art

I love the house that we bought here in Michigan, but one of its downsides is that it has a fancy stainless steel refrigerator that does not support the application of magnets.

[borrowed from http://cdn1.lostateminor.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/motifo.jpg]

If you are a major appliance which cannot support magnets, you cannot host a magnet collection gathered from each of the fifty states.  Another bad side effect of that is that you cannot use the magnets to hold up fridge art.  Right now our kids(pets) do not understand the concept of art (other than the nice soft quilt which two of them are currently napping on top of), but one day we hope to have some human children to care for and love.

I guess we could have "file cabinet art" collections, but that just does not have the same ring as "fridge art".  

The Party of not only NO, but HELL NO!

There are a lot of Republicans that I love quite dearly, but the GOP is an organization that I increasingly do not understand.  Actually, I DO understand it, but what I understand is quite disturbing.

[borrowed from http://eurthisnthat.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/gop_elephant2009-elephant-upside-down-dead-med.jpg]

I think that my parents are still registered Republicans, but sometime in the last few years the picture of "43" that used to be above the desk in the kitchen nook inexplicably disappeared. [I really do not want to ask what happened to it, for fear that bringing attention to its absence might result in its being put back up.]  I think it was put up initially as an homage to my Grandmother, a former state legislator in Connecticut, who put up a picture of her favorite GOP presidents above her desk where she paid her bills and wrote her correspondence.

But back to the current GOP.  I just cannot comprehend their stances on many of the hot button issues:

• no, you may not marry that person
• no, you should not have access to that medication
• no, we do not want you to become a citizen 
• no, we will not cooperate with the executive branch to help that segment of the population

I was going to go ahead and start listing what they would say YES to, but I need to get in a better frame of mind before I call my mom to wish her a happy mother's day.

More unintended consequences......

Having spent a good deal of my career focused on fish, and the enforcement of the local, federal and international regulations related to those critters, I found out this morning that I bought a potential invasive species to hang out with my perky little cory cats.

I was mortified that I had unknowingly made this questionable purchase. [I was almost as upset as when I discovered that the cool see-through fresh water fish with the colorful streaks near their dorsal fins had actually been injected with some sort of gel. Those poor little guys did not survive very long, because they developed infections based on being tortured......]

There were a couple of snails to choose from. Some big chunky ones whose name I could not remember, and a smaller onw with a nice yellowish shell, whose common name was "Trapdoor Snail". I googled the common name this morning, and found that the actual lineage of the little fella is Bellamya chinensis, or the Chinese mystery snail.

One cool thing about it is that it has a behavior that can be an early indicator of bad water quality. If it senses unhealthy water conditions, it closes itself up so that no more water can get into its shell. This can help you save all your fish by giving you a heads up that something is wrong. It can also use this strategy to survive a short dry period in its environment (i.e., waiting things out until the rainy season brings it some more water).

borrowed from B. Chinensis article on wikipedia.org

The last snail accident we had was back in Massachusetts, when we first started setting up freshwater aquaria.  We were putting plants in with our danios (in the friendly tank) and with the closet killer upside down catfish (who hid under the small decorative log chunk during the day, and came out and hunted down his smaller tank mates at night) in what was supposed to be the semi-aggressive tank.  Apparently catfish do not adhere to research and advice that one finds at pet stores and on the internet, or we were not looking in the right places.  [in fact, we spoke to a pet shop person recently who commented, "oh yeah, you always need to have two upside down catfish in one tank, so they will keep each other in check."

But back to my guilty conscience over the harmless looking snail.  When she reads the e-mail I sent early this morning, I know my friend Robyn will also inform me that this snail is illegal in Oregon, because they are clogging water intake pipes.  AAAAGGGGHHHRRR!!!!   

I may have to go out and kill some purple loosestrife to make myself feel better.....

Decisive, not divisive

[borrowed from a.aaa-cool-dollar-sign.jpg]

Having been a political science major in college, I often get asked why I don't want to run for political office.  The reasons have been many and varied over the years, and the most prevalent one is my highly developed sense of smell, and related peculiarities of my character. Let me explain that a little further.

I do have a very good nose for smells, both literal and figurative.  I could smell the diesel fuel being sucked into our work spaces from the heavy work equipment at the site next to our building when they finally got the air handling system working more efficiently.  Only maybe two out of ten people in the building I questioned about the noxious new aroma could identify the smell.  [Is it a coincidence that only 20% of people in the USCG are women?  I actually do not recall now if the only people who could relate to my alarm over the smell were women, but I know at least a couple were, and that I certainly did not ask more than a dozen.  You can do the math from here....]

When spousal unit met some new 'friends' that wanted him to attend an informational meeting about a business venture at a local church, after hearing a few details before the meeting, I replied, "Pyramid scheme, I will not be going."  I was told initially that I was just being cynical, but after the meeting and several follow up phone calls from these 'friends', he agreed with my snap judgment.

Another good reason why I believe that I could not be a successful politician is that I too often wear my heart on my sleeve, and tell people EXACTLY what I think, even when it may not be the most prudent/polite thing to do.  Over a decade ago, while musing about future technology with my shipmates during a boring bridge watch, I commented that I thought that video phones would be a cool thing.  One of my colleagues replied, "You should never use one of those because people would know exactly what you were thinking based on your facial expressions!"  I thought that would be helpful in communication, but after being married for almost 10 years, I realize that he was right.  It is hard to deny that you think something might work when you just rolled your eyes.......

Those anecdotes aside, my current reason for not wanting to run for office is that the political climate today seems to be only one of divisiveness, not what it really needs to be DECISIVENESS!  Everyone wants to point out how different they are from the competition, when they really should be concerned with helping out the people in our society who need it most.

Since we don't have publicly financed elections, and nice guys/gals do too often seem to finish last, the focus of the incumbents is on raising money rather than raising the education level of our future generations.  For congresspeople in particular, since their terms are only two years long, almost immediately after they are elected, they have to start earning money for their next election campaign.  That means that all the serious work of legislating is being done by their staffers.  Maybe that is OK, since they are they boss, and should be spending most of the time making the decisions, but it still bothers me.

And that is my current best reason for not wanting to run for ANY elected office in our federal government.  Not that anyone is beating down my door asking me to run, but it was just something I wanted to get off my chest on a beautiful Easter morning!!!

Where did all the adverbs go?

I realize that diagramming is probably not taught in schools very often these days, but I remember dissecting sentences for 45 minutes a day with Mrs. Pankratz back in the late 70s.

borrowed from http://georgenewall.com/imagesshr/lolly_shelves.jpg

For some reason, most people these days don't seem to understand that an ADVERB is a word that modifies the very in your sentence and generally ends in an "LY".  See that word GENERALLY in the last sentence?  That was the adverb, boys and girls!

Sportscasters and athletes seem especially bad at properly using the english language when it comes to adverbs.

Maybe they did not enjoy Schoolhouse Rock as much as I did.....

Granted, some of them are much younger than I am, but that is no excuse for not practicing good grammar.  They understand the basic concept, as they usually choose the correct adjective that could be easily converted into the matching adverb, but close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades, right?

Nasty and brutish, but DEFINITELY not short!

I do some of my best thinking in the shower, and this morning I was struck at how our electioneering system (and to a certain extent lately, our political system as a whole) is more like the "state of nature"  that I studied OH SO MANY years ago in college.  Those who are not political junkies, or who did not spend most of their time in college reading political philosophy tomes, might think that a natural state doesn't sound too bad, perhaps.  But the "state of nature" described by Hobbes and other writers of his time was characterized as "nasty, brutish and short".  They believed that mankind had elevated itself by progressing out of this natural state, where every person had to fight and scrabble for existence, and into one where political institutions would provide a better quality of life.

[Just in case there is any doubt about who I am supporting!!!]

But since we have not moved in the direction of public financing of election campaigns at the national level, we instead have a system where an anonymous private donor can give $5M in one lump sum to a super PAC who will cover the airwaves with negative advertisements about the "other guy".

We had a meeting at work yesterday where several people (including myself) brought up the concept that we should treat each other as if we believed in the good intentions of the other person.  I personally have eight teams of people out in the field that report directly to me, and it is honestly hard to serve them all equally well all of the time.  Sometimes we get into adversarial relationships, and I have to remind myself that we all wear the same uniform, we all took the same oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and that we are trying to get to the same goal, we just have different strategies for how to get there.......

Our basically two party political system here in the US has created an extremely competitive environment which is going back to the "state of nature" rather than resulting in civil and productive discussions.  Our elected senators and congresspeople cannot even get their act together and fix our budget crisis, because they are all engaging in black and white thinking, and seem to believe that if the cede ANY ground on ANY topic, that is unacceptable!

And since the election process seems to take about two years from start to finish (for the president, anyway) we have nearly 10 months before we are out of this miserable state.