Beatrix Potter — conservationist

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A farm in England’s Lake District

If you haven’t seen the 2006 film “Miss Potter,” I highly recommend it. The film is historically accurate in reminding us that Beatrix Potter was a conservationist. As a child she spent summers in England’s Lake District, and after she became rich and famous she bought a farm there. She was deeply concerned because developers were buying up small farms for vacation homes, and she used her wealth to buy and preserve these places. When she died she left over 4,000 acres to a trust, and that trust is now part of a national park.

More on broadband Internet in Stokes [updated]

In the Oct. 8 minutes of the Stokes County commissioners meeting (available online) Mike Rothstein of Sandy Ridge pleaded for the need for broadband Internet access in rural parts of Stokes where broadband is not yet available. This prompted me to email the Stokes commissioners and the county manager. Here’s my email:

Dear Commissioners,

I took note of this paragraph in the online minutes of the Oct. 8 meeting:

“Mr. Rothstein spoke to the Board regarding the need for high-speed connectivity in their community in Stokes County, which has 4-5 businesses that are starting up and need high speed internet. Mr. Rothstein presented a petition with 40 signatures that need and want high-speed internet services. Mr. Rothstein noted that only 68.07 percent of homes in Stokes County have the ability to access high speed internet, which places Stokes County in the lowest quartile of connectivity in the State. Mr. Rothstein urged Commissioners to continue to work for high speed internet for the citizens of Stokes County and to help bring in economic development into the County.”

Late last year, the board approved a new 199-foot tower for Alltel on Mission Road. I believe this tower is now in service for ordinary cell phone service. Alltel, however, is capable of providing broadband Internet access through this tower using EVDO technology. This type of access already is available from Alltel in many parts of North Carolina. It is my understanding, from informal communication with people close to Alltel, that Alltel has not yet made a decision when it will offer this service in Stokes. Perhaps the commissioners could encourage Alltel to accelerate this type of service? EVDO broadband access through existing towers is probably one of the most efficient and least expensive ways of delivering broadband access to rural areas such as my property on Wells Creek Road. I believe it would be very helpful if the commissioners would communicate with Alltel and encourage them to offer this service as soon as possible. I believe the petition submitted by Mr. Rothstein confirms that Alltel would find many customers.

Best regards,
David Dalton

Update: Below is the response to my email from Jimmy Walker, vice chairman of the board of commissioners:

Dear Mr. Dalton

Thanks for this email, too.

I just read it and found the information you provided to be both interesting and useful. High speed internet is also a component of economic development for our county.

I am following up on your email by forwarding it to the proper people in our county who can hopefully move forward with this information.

Thanks again.

Jimmy Walker

Give bats a break

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www.batcon.org

What’s Halloween without bats?

Many bat species are endangered, and bat populations are threatened worldwide. Many organizations and universities are working to save bat populations. One thing we can do, if we have a place, is to give bats a place to live.

The University of Florida has a fairly gothic bat house:

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Here’s another nice bat house in Tallahassee:

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Lucky me. I have plenty of room for bats on my place in Stokes County. I’ve already bought a couple of these ready-made bat houses. I’ll put them up on the hill on the other side of the branch, not too close to the house:

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I’m looking forward to having bats as neighbors. They’re very useful to have around, because they eat mosquitos. Though I think the cute bat below is a fruit-eating bat.

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www.batcon.org

No wireless Internet on new Alltel tower

I’ve been hanging out of a couple of Internet forums frequented by cell-phone nerds hoping to find out whether broadband Internet service is available on the new Alltel tower on Mission Road east of Danbury.

I think I have a reliable answer now from an Alltel field technician. The answer is that, at present, the new tower supports only regular cell phone service. It seems Alltel is still making decisions about where to expand its Internet broadband service in 2008.

This type of service, by the way, is called EVDO broadband, and it supports Internet connections at about the same speeds as DSL. Where available, it costs about $60 a month. To use the service, one buys a wireless PCMCIA card and inserts it into a laptop.

There also are wireless routers than can take the EVDO signal and share it onto a WiFi network.

I certainly hope Alltel provides Internet broadband in rural Stokes before much longer. It’s expensive, but it’s less expensive than satellite Internet, and, given that cell phone towers are now common in rural areas, it’s probably the best way of delivering broadband Internet to more remote rural areas.

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A third Trader Joe's in Charlotte

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Trader Joe’s

I’ll write more in the future about why Trader Joe’s has been my main grocery store here in California and how Trader Joe’s makes a healthy diet affordable. Well, less unaffordable, because good food is not cheap. Trader Joe’s also has an excellent selection of wines at very good prices. Trader Joe’s is not all that good a place to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, but their less perishable items are of very high quality and typically cost a third to a half less than comparable items in a regular grocery store. I’m guessing that one of the ways Trader Joe’s keeps its prices down is that they don’t offer much of the fresh produce items that go bad in grocery stores and which grocery stores throw out at a disturbing rate. Fresh produce also is very expensive to ship. An excellent way to have a good diet in the provinces would be to go to Trader Joe’s for one’s staples once or twice a month and to depend on local farmer’s markets, or one’s own garden, for fresh produce.

Now if they’d only open a Trader Joe’s in Winston-Salem. If Charlotte can support three, surely Winston-Salem could support one.

From the Charlotte Observer:

Trader Joe’s coming to Midtown in 2008

Specialty grocery store Trader Joe’s is opening a center city location at the new Metropolitan development in Midtown, store officials said Monday. The store, the third Trader Joe’s location in Charlotte, will open in 2008, company spokeswoman Alison Mochizuki said.

The Metropolitan is home to a newly opened Target and Home Depot Design Center, which opens Thursday.

Trader Joe’s opened its first Charlotte store in August at the Shops in Piper Glen, 6418 Rea Road. The second Charlotte store, at 1820 Arbor Drive near Mallard Creek Church Road, is expected to open later this year.

At 13,100 square feet, the Midtown location will be larger than the 12,500-square-foot store in south Charlotte.

Trader Joe’s sells a wide variety of items, from salsas to granolas, frozen foods and candies. The company often uses small, artisan producers. In a typical Trader Joe’s, more than 80 percent of the products are exclusive. It aims at nutrition niches, such as gluten-free, kosher, vegetarian and vegan products.

Sustainable living in Stokes County

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Butterfly hunting in Stokes, Carolina Butteryfly Society

I noticed in the reader statistics for this web site that someone recently found the web site with the search “sustainable living, Stokes County, N.C.” What a great idea for a post.

Sustainable living means frugality and low consumption, with minimum disturbance to land and wildlife.

First of all, Stokes County cannot sustain a sustainable living for too many people. Just as the woods can support only so many squirrels (in direct proportion to the nut supply), a rural setting can support only so many humans in a sustainable way. Stokes County does not need more commuters. Already, 71 percent of Stokes workers commute to other counties for their jobs. That’s not a trend that needs to be made worse. But for those few people like retirees who have an outside income, or for those lucky enough to make their living within the Stokes County economy, there are many reasons why Stokes County is a good place for a sustainable lifestyle.

Stokes’ population density — 99 people per square mile — is lower than the surrounding counties. According to the Census Bureau, for comparison, here are statistics for people per square mile: Forsyth 747, Surry 133, Rockingham 162, Yadkin 108, Henry County, Va., 152. You have to go to west to Ashe County, N.C., bordering on the Tennessee line, to get an impressively low population density — 57 people per square mile.

In Stokes, much of the population is concentrated in King and a couple of other small towns, so in rural areas the population density is considerably lower. From aerial photos, I estimate that fewer than 20 people live on the square mile around my land.

In 2003, Stokes County commissioned an economic survey by a research company, Angelou Economics. That survey contains some interesting information. Stokes County has 110,000 acres of farmland, or 38 percent of the county. From about 1995 to about 2000, Stokes actually lost some population as manufacturing jobs were lost. During this time, there was good growth in tourism. Stokes has a jobs-to-residents ratio of 1:5, way below the “desirable” ratio of 1:2. If you need a job, Stokes County is the wrong place to go.

Economic statistics aside, in my opinion one of the biggest factors favoring a sustainable lifestyle in Stokes is cultural. Many people in Stokes are farmers, and many of the longtime residents of Stokes still have the skills that their grandparents and great-grandparents needed to live close to the land. Many Stokes residents still have their farms, their crops, their outbuildings, and their tractors, and they know how to use them. People who live simply and close to the land get respect. Stokes County values its past and wants to preserve it.

Horne Creek Living Historical Farm is in Pinnacle, and I believe it may be across the Surry County line. But it’s all about how our forebears lived sustainably on the same land we live on today:

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Horne Creek Living Historical Farm

Of course, no one is an island. Sustainable living is a community concern. Farmer’s markets, pick-your-own berry farms, and sharing of produce with neighbors are already strong in Stokes and surrounding counties, and getting stronger.

We all consume too much energy. Duke Energy’s low rates don’t encourage conservation, and Duke’s environmental record is not good. Linda Brinson has written in the Winston-Salem Journal about why Duke has such low rates. It’s from the coal dug gracelessly out of the mountains in West Virginia and hauled in by train to places like the Belews Creek Steam Station.

We all have different situations, so we each have to figure out the best way to manage our energy consumption. I’ll write more about my own plan for minimizing energy consumption in the future, but the fundamentals are:

— Drive less. Leave the car at home for days in a row. One’s home should be so interesting that one doesn’t need to go out for entertainment. Shopping trips need to be minimized.

— Live in a small, efficient house. My house will be 1200 square feet. I plan to splurge on a reflective metal roof and maximize insulation. I plan to have a whole-house attic fan that will pull in cool air from the woods and push hot air out through the attic, leaving the air conditioning off except during the hottest of weather. The building site also is well positioned. It’s on a south slope, with a large stand of hardwoods to the south. Thus the house will be shaded in summer but will get sunlight in winter.

The North Carolina Department of Agriculture and North Carolina State University Extension web sites are excellent sources of information on living well, and efficiently, with articles on everything from farmers markets to growing shitake mushrooms as a cash crop.

A partnership between people who remember, or want to revive, a simple and traditional lifestyle with people who’ve made it a science, like the Department of Agriculture and N.C. State, is a powerful partnership.

The N.C. State Extension has a presence in Stokes. Take note of their workshops and classes.

See also the Stokes Center of Regional Economics, which seems to take a particular interest in Stokes County’s most promising crop, sweet potatoes:

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Stokes Center of Regional Economics

Rural trash disposal, then and now

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The Winston-Salem Journal has a piece this morning on two illegal dumps being discovered and shut down in Stokes County.

Only in the last 35 to 40 years have the rural counties in Piedmont North Carolina cracked down on local dumping and assumed responsibility for trash disposal. Until that time, if you looked behind any rural home, you’d find a gully where bottles, cans, broken bicycles and worn-out couches were tossed. Paper and cardboard usually went into a burn barrel.

House-to-house pickup would be way too expensive for these rural areas, so rural residents these days are expected to bag their trash and take it to local drop-off sites around the county. Recyclable items also are collected.

I only wish that rural counties were as unforgiving of erosion and muddy runoff as they now are of illegal trash disposal. A citizens group to keep an eye on the Yadkin River is working on reviving itself. The Dan could use some help, too. More on muddy rivers another day…

Rural Internet access

The United States is not very wired. In 2005, the U.S. ranked 12th in the world in the prevalence of Internet access. Japan and much of Europe is ahead of us:


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_Internet_access_worldwide

Internet access is particularly a problem in rural areas of the U.S. In Stokes County, DSL is available only in the more populated corner of the county near King. As far as I can tell from online research, there are two other telephone company central offices in the county, and the two remote central offices don’t even support DSL.

Cable? I’m too far out for that too. My neighbors in rural Stokes have dial-up access, if they have Internet access at all.

I’m a wired person. Dial-up won’t do.

Satellite for Internet access is a possibility, but I’d rather not go that route. It’s not that much more expensive that other types of broadband, but the bandwidth isn’t great, and there’s a delay while the signals make the 46,000-mile round trip up to the satellite and back.

I try to keep up with the Stokes County commissioners by reading the minutes of the commissioner meetings online:

www.co.stokes.nc.us/

From the minutes of the meeting on December 5, 2006, I learned that the commissioners had approved Alltel’s request for a 199-foot cell phone tower a couple of miles east of Danbury. The tower site is on the south side of Mission Road about four-tenths of a mile from the intersection of Pitzer Road.

In June 2007 I called the owner of the property, who was identified in the minutes, and asked him if he knew if the tower is working yet. He said that the tower is up, the power has been brought in, etc., and that he expects the tower will be working before long.

It’s very difficult to get information out of Alltel, but my hope is that this cell phone tower will support broadband EVDO service over the cellular network. Alltel calls this service “Axcess Broadband/MobileLink,” and prices start at $60 a month.

As soon as I’m on the ground in Stokes County, I’ll be following broadband developments very closely.